The Blacknock Woman by
Brian Cooper
hbk out March 99
Published by Constable
at £16.99
It is 1951, early on a misty May morning. As the sea recedes and the sun rises the naked body of a woman is found lying in the treacherous mud that is known to the locals of Medford as Blacknock Sand. The cause of death is, at first, a mystery, but the pathologist, Dr. Ledward, decides that she was suffocated.
The woman's identity is not known and this proves something of a problem for DI Mike Tench, There were many sightings of her in the days before her death, but In each of them she goes by a different name and place of origin. Two more murders follow. Both are local men familiar with the dangers of Blacknock Sand. Their necks have been broken. The second death seems to implicate the village simpleton, Daft Danny Sprot. Tench is not convinced. He has an energetic team of young detectives working for him, but he seems to be getting nowhere and his Chief Constable is all for calling in Scotland Yard. Tench persists, however, encouraged by his old mentor, ex-DCI John Lubbock, and eventually gets his man.
This is the sixth of the Lubbock and Tench books and is one of the best. Tench comes across as a very dedicated policeman and we see nothing of his off-duty life. Lubbock plays a lesser part than usual. He is, as ever, the oracle who intervenes at a whim or waits to be consulted while leaning on his gate and smoking his foul-smelling pipe and dispensing wisdom to his young successor. He continues to call Tench "laddie" and a minor character, Burcham, adds to this tiresome practice by calling the young policewoman, Sue Gradwell, "dear lady," The other characters are only lightly sketched in, apart from DS McKenzie.
The Norfolk background, as ever with Brian Cooper, is utterly convincing. He·knows the county intimately and has a keen ear for the local dialect: "Sacks?" he said. "Sacks? An' why should a be romentin' on about sacks? Wha' do he want ter be knowin' about they fer? Hones' ter God, gel, reckon there be times when yew ent got more sense' n a May bloody gosling. The gets shannier an' shannier, bugger me if the' don'." This is convincing, the use of "laddie" and "dear lady" is not.
The Blacknock Woman by
Brian Cooper