Tangled Web UK Review November 2011
The Pursued by
C S Forester
hbk out November 11
Published by Penguin Classic Crime
at £14.99
The appearance of The
Pursued brings an extraordinary literary mystery to a satisfying conclusion.
The book was written in 1935, but Forester, in between Horatio Hornblower books,
decided to delay publication. Unfortunately, the manuscript was then lost, and
it only re-surfaced in an auction a few years ago. And now, finally, Penguin have
published it. They are to be congratulated on making available a fascinating story
which is also a milestone in the development of the crime genre. The setting is
suburbia – drab, perhaps, but not impoverished – and the book opens
in dramatic fashion when Marjorie Grainger, a young married woman with two children,
returns home one evening to find the dead body of her sister Dot. Dot has, it
seems, gassed herself, and the inquest verdict is suicide. But Dot was pregnant
and soon Marjorie, and her mother, begin to suspect that Ted Grainger, Marjorie’s
husband, was responsible for the death of Dot and her unborn child. What unfolds
is an extraordinary tale of revenge. I found it gripping, although the final section
of the book seemed rather rushed and unsatisfactory compared to the steady suspense-building
of the bulk of the story. Forester abandoned crime fiction after this book and
became famous for Hornblower, and The African Queen. But this is a highly enjoyable,
as well as historically important novel, which shows what a talented writer he
was.
(
Martin Edwards
- author of the highly acclaimed Harry Devlin Mysteries)
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