Wed 7 Sep 2016
Reviewed by Barry Gardner: M. R. D. MEEK – Touch and Go.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[3] Comments
M. R. D. MEEK – Touch and Go. Lennox Kemp #10. Charles Scribner’s Sons, US, hardcover, 1993. Worldwide Mystery, US, paperback, 1994. First published in the UK: Collins Crime Club, hardcover, 1992.
I gave a previous Kemp adventure a very lukewarm review not too long ago, and now I wonder if maybe I wasn’t just in a bad mood. This one is quite good.
Kemp is an English solicitor, once disbarred and working as a private agent, now reinstated and successful. His past comes back to complicate his present when his ex-wife, for whom he had committed the acts that led to his disgrace, dies in America and mentions him in her wills.
Yes, wills, because there seems to be two of them, though the original of the second has vanished, along with the jewels Kemp had been willed in the first. The kicker is that the second leaves a quite considerable everything to Kemp, at the expense of some very unsavory types from Las Vegas.
It all gets quite complicated, and dangerous as well when it appears that the second may hold up. On top of everything else the only secretary Kemp has ever had is pregnant, and he must replace her.
I found this an engaging story from beginning to end. For reasons I can’t put the proverbial finger on, Kemp was a much more appealing character to me than he has been in the past, and I found the other characters well done also.
Meek’s prose was low key and understated as usual, and fitted the story well. It is not, by the way, a murder mystery in any sense, but don’t let that put you off. All told, a very enjoyable book, marred only by an ending in which I couldn’t quite believe.
The Lennox Kemp series —
1. With Flowers That Fell (1983)
2. The Sitting Ducks (1984)
3. Hang the Consequences (1984)
4. The Split Second (1985)
5. In Remembrance of Rose (1986)
6. Worm of Doubt (1987)
7. A Mouthful of Sand (1988)
8. A Loose Connection (1989)
9. This Blessed Plot (1990)
10. Touch and Go (1992)
11. Postscript to Murder (1996)
12. A House to Die for (1999)
13. If You Go Down to the Woods (2001)
14. The Vanishing Point (2002)
15. Kemp’s Last Case (2004)
September 7th, 2016 at 12:29 pm
I don’t think it will surprise anyone reading this to learn that M. R. D. Meek was female. She died in 2009, and her full name was Margaret Reed Duncan Meek.
I made one correction in Barry’s review. He had this book listed as #8 in the series, whereas it is actually #10. I suspect — but have not checked — that it may have been the eighth to be published in this country.
September 7th, 2016 at 10:47 pm
Not a big fan, but she was always professional and seldom not readable.
September 7th, 2016 at 11:55 pm
I sampled one once, maybe this one, but probably not. After a couple of chapters, I said to myself, this is better than I thought it was going to be, put it down to pick up again later, and I never did.