Over Here by
Alan Hunter
hbk out February 98
Published by Constable
at £16.99
Three Americans have come to England on a nostalgic trip to revisit their old airfield at Teddington where they were stationed as fighter pilots during the Second World War. During their exploration of their old haunts they find a skeleton in one of the abandoned Nissen Huts. It is the remains of a young woman who has been dead for more than fifty years. She was Milly Read and two of the ex-airmen were romantically involved with her. The day after the discovery Chief Superintendent George Gently receives an anonymous note telling him to ask the Yanks about Milly Reed.
It is a very promising beginning. At the centre of the book, inevitably, is Gently. It is not, strictly speaking, his case, because it does not take place on his patch, but everybody, local police and suspects and others, defers to him and he takes such deference as no more than his due. He is imperturbable as ever and confronted by intemperate and excitable people. The airmen suspects are the worst offenders, behaving as if they were guilty and ever ready to explode into anger, a not unusual response from suspects in the Gently books. Indeed the three airmen blur into one and it is often difficult to know which is which. They all use the same dated language - ""chick"", ""doll"", ""bonzo"" - and repeatedly call Gently ""fella"" Some of the peripheral figures are nearly as bad. Cissy, who had been a friend of the dead girl, calls Gently a ""bastard"", a ""sod"" and a ""beast"" in the space of half a page and the wife of one of the airmen calls Milly a ""tart"" and a ""bitch"" and refers to Gabrielle Gently as ""your froggy wife"" And the man leading the local police team, DI Eyke, calls one of the ex-airmen, a man old enough to be his father, ""sonny"" end orders him to ""cool it"" when he loses his temper. Such colloquial language is not for Gently, who prefers a more stilted tone. He shows one of the suspects the anonymous note and asks, ""You have no idea from whom it may have emanated?"" And when Cissy wonders whether Gently's wife is French he says, ""Gabrielle is a native of Rouen."" One must hope that Cissy knows that Rouen is in France.
This is the forty-fifth Gently book by Alan Hunter who never tires of conveying to us how remarkable Gently is. Major Forrest refers to him as ""the boss man"" and Eyke loses no opportunity to thank him for his help. He brings the case, as ever, to a satisfactory conclusion, Devotees of the Gently books will, I am sure, enjoy it.
Over Here by
Alan Hunter