The Body Beautiful by
Raymond Flynn
pbk out January 99
(NEL)
at £5.99
Eddathorpe is suffering its worst summer for many years, but is seeing no decrease in crime, What's more DCI Robert Graham, innocently walking his dog one night, is mistaken for a stalker and attacked, though his assailant suffers rather more from the attentions of his dog. It is a lively beginning to a story of murder and mayhem. An attractive young woman, Davinia West, a finalist in a local beauty contest, is brutally murdered. There are, inevitably, a number of unsavoury suspects, chief of whom is Paulie Parkes, a former television personality who has fallen from grace. Graham's task in tracking the murderer is not helped by his overbearing superiors, Superintendent Edward Baring and Detective Chief Superintendent Peter Fairfield. Each expects his unstinting loyalty and he is hard put to keep them both reasonably happy. Fortunately he gets good support from his team, particularly his plain speaking sergeant, George Gaunt.
The police background is authentic, as one would expect from an ex-policeman with twenty-six years in the job, latterly as a DI. Raymond Flynn writes well and his evocation of a rain-swept, wind-swept sunless Eddathorpe carries conviction. Unfortunately he has a character (Baring) who is prone to the tiresome habit of quoting from Shakespeare or the Bible. It is tiresome and pretentious because it doesn't ring true, particularly when, as in the Eddathorpe series, Graham is called upon to finish the quotation or explain its meaning to uncomprehending plods and ends up "winning the reputation as an unreconstructed nut". But Raymond Flynn is not alone in using quotations. Many writers resort to it, including Ruth Rendell. One other point: the author's punctuation is erratic and his golden rule appears to be to use a semi-colon when in doubt. As a consequence the text is peppered with them.
This is the fifth in the Eddathorpe series and like the previous four has the word "body" in the title. One wonders why this one is called The Body Beautiful, but never mind, It is a neat idea, like John D Macdonald's colour titles and Veronica Stallwood's "Oxford" novels and I am sure that Raymond Flynn will be able to find plenty of variants for future books.
The Body Beautiful by
Raymond Flynn