REVIEWED BY BARRY GARDNER:

   

BARRY NORMAN – The Butterfly Tattoo. Bobby Lennox #2, St. Martin’s, hardcover, 1996. Published in the UK under the title The Mickey Mouse Affair (Orion, 1995).

   If I read the first in this series, The Birddog Tape, I’ve forgotten it. The author hosts a popular film review program for the BBC, and has written a number of other books both fiction and non-.

   Bobby Lennox is an ex-boxer of not quite first rank who was fortunate enough to get out of the game with his face and wits intact He’s used those wits to become a successful businessman and investor, but still has ties to the rougher world he used to inhabit.

   An old friend from that world, a top underworld figure who has almost become legitimatized, calls him and asks a favor: a London politician who may be in line for a Ministership and who is “helpful” to him is being blackmailed, and the crime figure wants Lennox to help make it go away. He does, and it does, but not before a lot of blood and tears are spilled.

   This was a pleasant surprise. It’s not a major book —  and not intended to be- — but one with more than competent first-person narration, well-drawn characters, and an interesting plot.

   In essence it’s a hardboiled private eye tale, though Lennox doesn’t have a license. In general I don’t think British authors have fared particularly well with this type of novel, but Norman seems to have the moves down pretty well.

— Reprinted from Ah Sweet Mysteries #25, May 1996.

   

Bio-Biographical Update (the first paragraph coming from the author’s Fantastic Fiction webpage) —

    “Barry Norman, 1933 – 2017, CBE, was a British film critic, journalist and television presenter. He presented Film… on BBC One from 1972 to 1998 and was the programme’s longest-running host. He also wrote many novels and non-fiction books, including books on film and cricket.”

   This and the one earlier one that Barry G. mentioned in this review constitute the entirety of Barry N.’s Bobby Lennox series.