Mon 3 Oct 2016
Reviewed by William F. Deeck: TIM HEALD – Let Sleeping Dogs Lie.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[5] Comments
William F. Deeck
TIM HEALD – Let Sleeping Dogs Lie. Stein and Day, US, hardcover, 1976. Ballantine, US, paperback, 1981. First published in the UK by Hutchinson, hardcover, 1976.
“Nothing can go wrong. It’s out of the question.” When Simon Bognor says this, it is time for the person spoken to to increase his insurance and to climb a tree, preferably pulling it up after him.
As an employee of the Special Investigations Department of the Board of Trade, Bognor is assigned — and he’s not happy about it as he is never happy about his assignments — to investigate charges that an international gang is smuggling dogs out of England and back in again to take part in shows and breeding. In this way, the dogs do not have to undergo quarantine on their return to England as required by law.
Not only does Bognor not like the assignment, he also has another problem: He loathes dogs. Indeed, “He had been known to kick out at perfectly inoffensive animals when the owners weren’t looking.” Nonetheless he starts visiting kennels and dog shows; at the end he likes dogs even less than he did.
Despite what I felt was an abrupt ending, this is another wonderfully amusing episode in the career, if that’s the correct word, of one of mysterydom’s woefully inept detectives.
Bibliographic Notes: This is the fourth of thirteen recorded adventures of Simon Bognor, beginning with Unbecoming Habits in 1973 and continuing through Yet Another Death in Venice, which appeared in 2014 (with a gap of some 22 years between #10 and #11.)
Four of the first five books, including Let Sleeping Dogs Lie, were telecast on British television as part of the series Bognor (ITV, 1981-82), starring David Horovitch in the title role.
October 3rd, 2016 at 10:29 pm
Although some of the early books were published in paperback in this country, I don’t believe this series of Simon Bognor novels made the slightest dent in the minds of mystery readers on this side of Atlantic.
I own a few of them, as it happens, but I’ve never read one. I don’t think I had any encouragement to do so until now, after reading Bill Deeck’s review.
October 4th, 2016 at 1:32 am
They’re quite enjoyable. Back in 1981-82 Thames TV in Britain did a series of adaptions of four of the novels (including this one) with David Horovitch in the title role. It was quite successful, with good ratings, but it fell victim to regime change at the TV company. Being on videotape it was never likely to sell widely overseas, but the whole thing is now available on DVD.
Heald continued writing the Bognor novels (as well as some short stories). The series seemed to have stopped about 1990, but he published another one two years ago. It’s hard to find detail online, but I understand that Heald has been suffering from chronic illness for some time now. The book here, and the others in the series, are well worth a look.
October 5th, 2016 at 9:04 pm
I’ve been searching for episodes of the series. I love the books, a genuinely funny series with a hapless hero you can’t help but root for.
October 6th, 2016 at 2:35 pm
I enjoyed the series, too. It’s really time that I re-read them, and caught up with the more recent ones that I’ve never seen. Luckily they don’t seem to have vanished entirely from view and were recently re-issued in e-book form.
Network released the whole 21 episodes of the TV show as a box set, although I suspect that it’s only available on region 2. There’s very little on Youtube concerning the show.
November 14th, 2016 at 2:29 am
Happening upon JUST DESSERTS recently, the fifth of the series, I remembered the promise to myself, as expressed in Comment #1, to give it a try. Regretfully, however, I made it to only page 20 before deciding not to go on any further. Sometimes British humor is more than I can fathom, and I think that this was one of those times.