The Last Red Death by
Paul Johnston
hbk out September 03
Published by Hodder
at £18.99
Another Greek mystery by Paul Johnston is something to savour, after his
last book, A Deeper Shade of Blue, which introduced his lead character,
private investigator Alex Mavros. The first one was set on an island, but this
latest novel uses both Athens and the mainland Peloponnese as the scene.
The author is a Scot who studied Greek at Oxford, so it is no surprise that his
Alex Mavros is half-Scots, half Greek, as the author himself lives part of the
time in Britain, the rest on a Greek island. He has an encyclopaedic
knowledge of both ancient and modern Greek history, as well as its
topography and part of the attraction of his books are the realistic word-
pictures of the country, warts and all. In The Last Red Death, the tortured
history of the country since the Second World war is graphically portrayed,
with the endless turmoil of resistance against the Nazi occupation, the
Communist insurgence and civil war, then the era of the despotic Colonels.
The plot arises out of these elements, as Grace Helmer, a young American
woman seeks Mavros' help is tracing a man known as Iraklis, the assassin of
her diplomat father, twenty-five years earlier. The killer, leader of a
Communist Party splinter group, has returned to Greece and several new
atrocities are perpetrated in Athens against Right-wing fat-cats. With Grace
tenaciously clinging to his side, Alex uses his contacts in both his family and
the media to follow the trail down to the Peloponnese, to the Mani, the
middle finger of land that juts down to Cape Matapan. In this beautiful but
vendetta-ridden area, he tracks and is tracked, the plot thickening as it
becomes apparent that someone other than Iraklis is involved in the lethal
intrigues.
It is a gripping story and a jolly good read, as well as being a mine of
information on Greece and its unfortunate recent history.
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
The Last Red Death by
Paul Johnston
