Alan Hunter - The Love of Gods Constable - £15.99
Every month in the town of Wolmering a group of artistic people
meet at the house of one of their number, Alec Beresford, to show
paintings and read poems and stories and plays. Their latest meeting is a
great success for one of them. Handsome Ambrose West (shades of John
Creasey's Handsome Roger West) has recently had a book of poems published and also
takes part in a reading of a play written by one of the
group. The following morning he is found dead in Alec Beresford’s garden. He
had been beaten to death and the murder must have taken place the night before,
shortly after the group meeting broke up.
It is a classic detective situation not quite
country house, but very near. A small group of people are
suspects, with one of them, a young artist named Christopher Clarke,
being the prime suspect, mainly because he was jealous of West's designs on
his girl, Liz, who had taken part in the play reading with West.
The investigation is led by Chief Superintendent George Gently who appears to do
most of the work himself though he is helped in the questioning of the
suspects by Sir Tommy, the Chief Constable (a caricature if ever there was
one) and a Detective Inspector. The questioning is aggressive,
even bullying, with the suspects being referred to always by
their surnames. The suspects for their part are equally aggressive
and unco-operative, particularly the prime suspect, Clarke, who
swears defiantly at the police, bangs the table, clenches his fists and often
"throws" himself into a chair. He is not, of course, the
murderer and Gently knows this and, naturally, unmasks the real murderer at the end.
This latest novel by Alan Hunter is one
of only a handful of Gently novels - there are now forty-four -
without "Gently" in the title. The chosen title, The Love of
the Gods, has little or no relevance to what happens in the book.
Indeed a different title, perhaps Gently with the artists, might have been more appropriate, though Mr Hunter May have rejected
this - if he ever thought of it, that is - because he has already done Gentlv with the
painters. But admirers of the Gently books will not complain about the
title, they will be pleased enough to welcome the latest in the series.
They will not be disappointed. JOHN BOYLES
