Commentary/review

A highly enjoyable and imaginative crime novel in the British Library Crime Classics (no. 17). As all of the novels included in the series, it begins with an informative, almost scholar introduction by Martin Edwards. The novel is not politically correct by today’s standards. It makes it even more interesting, making the novel more believable. It pictures the unique atmosphere of London Soho at the beginning of the Second World War as well as the web of social tensions characteristic of that time.

The novel is fast-paced and reminds of romantic action movies, with exciting twists of luck and fate, the cunning and the charm in pretty much equal parts. It would be an easy read for the contemporaries. Now, it carries additional layers as a kind of dark and twisted historical fiction. It may be an interesting tool to compare today’s society with that from the past, to be reminded that certain phenomena we may now consider new have always been there. Yet there is that feeling of damaged shared morality of the modern times that usually accompanies novels written and published with a guilty conscience. Would we feel that scandalous today, I wonder.

I always enjoy the covers of the British Library Crime Classics series. This article references Mary Evans Picture Library for this one.

Cover Photo by Luke Stackpoole on Unsplash