Thu 25 Nov 2010
Archived Review: ROY LEWIS – Nothing But Foxes.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[2] Comments
ROY LEWIS – Nothing But Foxes. St. Martin’s, hardcover, 1979. Originally published in England: Collins Crime Club, hardcover, 1977.
Fox hunts are still immensely popular with the English gentry, but not unexpectedly they’ve also become the target of those who view them as outdated elitist symbols of the not yet achieved social equality they clamor for.
When just such a young activist is found murdered, his body discovered by the members of a hunting club in full chase, wise politics suggests that Scotland Yard be called in at once.
Inspector Crow’s usual approach to a murder investigation is a slow and plodding one, as he deliberately takes a cool and dispassionate look at all the evidence before committing himself. Inspired for once, however, by the involved, youthful exuberance of the aspiring young local policeman assisting him, this time he takes a gamble, and he pulls it off.
Disappointingly, the motive has little to do with hunting foxes.
The Inspector John Crow series —
Error of Judgement (1971)
A Secret Singing (1972)
Blood Money (1973)
A Question of Degree (1974)
A Part of Virtue (1975)
Nothing But Foxes (1977)
A Relative Distance (1981)
Roy Lewis, no relation, and not to be confused with mystery writer Roy Harley Lewis, is not only the author of the eight John Crow mysteries listed above, but 16 books in his Eric Ward series, and 21 crime novels with Arnold Landon as the lead character. Add 12 additional standalones, the most recent being Design for Murder (2010), and you have perhaps one of the more prolific of current writers no one in the US has heard of, without too much exaggeration, I suspect.
November 25th, 2010 at 8:50 pm
My letter grade rating for FOXES when I wrote this review was a “C”. The review’s too short to be sure, based on it alone, but the only thing that might encourage me to read another of Roy Lewis’s works of crime fiction is that he’s written so many of them.
I’ve also done some research, the results of which I’m happy to pass along to you. Eric Ward is a solicitor “who maintains a small criminal practice on Newcastle’s Quayside.” His other series character, Arnold Landon, is an archaeologist whom the police call on in cases where his expertise may be useful.
Worth investigating, perhaps?
November 26th, 2010 at 9:18 am
Well, some of us have heard of him, Steve. I used to sell a fair number of his books, as well as the Roy Harley Lewis books.
Of course, I’ve never actually read either of them….