Sat 24 Jul 2021
A Mystery Review by LJ Roberts: ANN CLEEVES – The Darkest Evening.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[11] Comments
Reviews by L. J. Roberts
ANN CLEEVES – The Darkest Evening. Vera Stanhope #9. Minotaur Books, hardcover, September 2020. Setting: England.
First Sentence: Lorna lifted Thomas from his high chair and held him for a moment on her knee.
DCI Vera Stanhope comes upon a car that has skidded off the road in a snowstorm. There is no driver to be seen, but an infant has been left secured in a child seat. Knowing she can’t leave him there, Vera and the child head for a nearby house, Brockburn, where her father grew up. When a neighbor of the house finds the body of a murdered woman half-covered by the snow, Vera calls up her team to solve the crime, uncovering family secrets along the way.
Vera is one of the best creations of contemporary mystery fiction. She is older, overweight, rather shabby, completely devoid of maternal instinct, and raised in a way to make her a loner, yet not unaffected by how others view her, and not without insecurities— “She paused for a moment, Cinderella looking in: the fifteen-year-old girl again, excluded.”
In addition to her descriptions of Vera, Cleeves creates a vivid sense of place— “The sight was like something from a fairy tale. Magical. The flurry of snow had passed and there was moonlight, and a sky flecked with stars.” —and scene— “…pheasant, cooked slowly with red wine and shallots…And a vegetable casserole…Roast potatoes and parsnips and sprouts…A variety of puds, hot and cold.”
Vera’s relationship with her team is interesting. She knows their vulnerabilities and weaknesses. Although she seems to take advantage of them, in knowing what drives them, she is helping them grow and improve individually and as a unit. What makes it work is that they understand what she is doing. They know her, too, with the teammates often bolstering one other.
Cleeves’ books are as much personality studies as they are mysteries. By focusing on motivation, it becomes clear how the past can influence the present and the future. One cannot help analyzing oneself in the process.
The plot is excellent. The information on anorexia is well presented and stresses the severity of the disease — which not simply an issue of vanity. There are plenty of questions and red herrings. The question as to who fathered the baby leads to effective supposition. A “ta-dah” moment gives way to real suspense and threat, and a wonderfully English ending.
The Darkest Evening is another example of Cleeves’ excellent storytelling. The climax is well done and even touching. It’s a mystery one may not figure out before the end when it all makes sense, and the use of Frost’s poem in the title is perfect.
Rating: Excellent.
July 24th, 2021 at 9:10 pm
I need to read more Cleeves, I certainly enjoy the series VERA about her main character.
July 24th, 2021 at 9:20 pm
The Brits (I’m an expat. Brit myself) love police procedurals (though not the Ed McBain variety). PPs seem to dominate crime fiction in Britain, compared to, say, private investigators.
July 24th, 2021 at 11:13 pm
What, I am wondering, has been the most successful British PI series? Other than than the Sherlock Holmes canon, obviously.
July 25th, 2021 at 2:42 am
Outside of the early likes of Martin Hewitt or semi amateur sleuths (Sexton Blake, Chesterton’s Flambeau, Christie’s Parker Pyne, John Ferguson’s Francis McNab, or in books like Eden Phillipotts LYCANTHROPY) probably the most successful British eyes of the earlier period were Anthony Armstrong’s crook turned private eye and amateur secret service man Jimmy Rezaire, Peter Cheyney’s Slim Callaghan, and David Hume’s Mick Cardby (the latter deserving of a revival, they were damn good books). Cheyney also had Nick Bellamy and Johnny Vallon, both private eyes each in a couple of books and a few one off eyes too.
E. B. Quinn, a woman, wrote a couple of good private eye novels about disgraced ex Yard man James Strange who prefigures Chandler and Marlowe in some ways in plot, philosophy, and voice.
Writing as Michael Halliday John Creasey had a pair of twin private eyes Post War and one of the semi regulars in the Roger West books is his private eye friend (Mark Kilby in the Robert Caine Fraser books is an insurance investigator) plus there was John Bentley’s Dick Marlow involved in international intrigue and Gerard Fairlie’s ex Yard man turned PI Johnny McCall.
A lot of thriller characters like John Newton Chance’s John Newton Chance come awfully close to private eye but miss the mark being a writer or reporter.
Radio serial star Dick Barton may have been a Special Agent, but operates more like a private investigator than a secret agent much of the time. In addition there was at least one series about the adventures of a young woman who regularly ends up in trouble working as a secretary for her private eye boyfriend created by part of the Dick Barton team.
Hooky Heffernan and Ludovic Travers are both private eye heroes though both are less tough guys than sort of professional amateur detectives like Adam Hall’s Hugo Bishop. Heffernan and Travers had long careers.
Liza Cody had Anna Lee, and P. D. James wrote at least two bestsellers about female private investigator Cordelia Gray, while today there is J. K. Rowling’s Cormorant Strike and his woman partner, and Val McDermid has at least one female series eye character in some books.
On the James Bond front James Mayo’s Charles Hood is sort of a very private investigator cum spy for a consortium of wealthy types seeking to keep their various interests stable.
Dick Francis had David Cleveland in one book (Ian McShane played him in the movies based on non Cleveland Francis books) and Sid Halley an ex jockey turned eye in several more and Colin Forbes wrote two books in the Len Deighton vein with private eye David Martini under the pseudonym Richard Reeves.
Basil Copper had his Miles Tripp books, but written as an American eye in the States, something fairly common among British pulps and paperback originals and accounting for much of what might otherwise be British private eye fiction.
Aside from Dave Fenner James Hadley Chase had at least two other private eyes, but all were Americans. I also recall a pretty good American eye novel by a British writer ironically named Peter Chambers that was praised by Barzun and Taylor in CATALOGUE OF CRIME.
And we can’t leave out Dennis Potter’s THE SINGING DETECTIVE.
One of the most popular comic strip creations and one of the longest running in the UK was John Monk’s Buck Ryan a cross between tough guy private eyes and Bulldog Drummond with a bit of Dick Tracy in the mix.
There was also the sophisticated lady eye Leslie Shane for quite a long run as something of a female Rip Kirby, and before Modesty Blaise Peter O’Donnell and James Holdway teamed on the romantically inept private eye Romeo Brown who had a habit of falling among scantily clad young ladies (British comic strips taking the strip part seriously from JANE on). I’m pretty sure Jane even acted as a private eye at least once in Post War adventures.
Francis Durbridge Paul Temple is a writer and amateur but certainly functions like a private eye, his Tim Fraser seems to be official, but behaves like an eye. Sapper’s Ronald Standish is a professional secret agent, but in his spare time a sort of cross between amateur and semi professional eye, as close as the Clubland Hero lot gets to private eye.
Will Thomas popular creations are private eyes and there are a number of historical series with what could only be called Private Inquiry Agents from several historical eras but especially the late 18th through the 19th Centuries.
John Gardner’s Boysie Oakes is part of a private security firm, GRIMOBO, at one point. I’m thinking there are several Golden Age amateurs who open up some sort of agency for at least one book (Cox’s Roger Sherringham for one), and doesn’t Albert Campion open up an office in one book? Frank King’s ex cracksman the Dormouse is a private investigator as is Jack Mann’s George Gregory Gordon Green, Gees, in his supernatural novels. I think Wyndham Martyn’s Anthony Trent may open up a private eye office too once he reforms though he remains an adventurer.
British SF writer Keith Laumer wrote at least one pretty good private eye novel.
At least in CONTRABAND Dennis Wheatley’s Gregory Sallust operates as fast and loose as any private eye even to letting the femme fatale get away.
You could argue Hercule Poirot operates as a private eye is some books and stories, but then the same could be said for Nigel Strangeways, Mrs. Bradley, and Miss Marple.
I can’t recall if Hugh Cleveley’s Maxwell Archer ever hangs out a shingle or just stumbles into things ala Bulldog Drummond. Most of his fellow THRILLER graduates are either gentleman crooks, adventurers, policemen, or some sort of secret or special agent.
While they often act as private investigators British writers seem more likely to go with either gentleman adventurer types (you could make a good case the Toff is a kind of private eye) or semi official sleuths from everything from the Inland Revenue to the Fisheries Service, while no few amateur detectives are semi official like Anthony Bathurst or Richard Herrivale. Solicitors are a favorite to operate as semi private eyes in many British books with only the style and voice differing from lawyer tecs here like Perry Mason or Scott Jordan.
The hero of Alistair MacLean’s THE SATAN BUG is a private eye who gets drawn back into security work at the books start. I can’t recall if any of Jack Higgins characters are eyes though Victor Canning had Rex Carver and his preposessing six foot tall female secretary in several books.
If you squint hard a number of secret agent characters like Philis, John Gail, and Len Deighton’s anonymous hero operate a bit like American private eyes just as some American private eyes operate like secret agents (Chet Drum for one). British private eye characters in particular are likely to take on fewer gangsters and murderers than international crooks, smugglers, and the like in the early years.
I mentioned the Toff, but the Saint and Norman Conquest at various times in their careers aren’t that far removed from private eyes nor is the Baron or Patrick Dawlish.
Umtil fairly recently British versions of the private eye were likely to either lean toward the more formal detective story or the thriller where in the American pulps and then paperback originals the genre set out a space somewhere in between with forays into the crime novel.
Then too, it is hard to imagine before the Sixties a British private eye crossing the class lines to smart off at a Peer of the realm the way the American eye does at the gauche rich or public figures. Popular as the American brand was there its somehow easier to imagine Marlowe in General Sternberg’s mansion than his British equivalent popping wise in a Great Hall without any forelock tugging involved.
Chandler and his line about Marlowe seducing a duchess aside, it is hard to see that working quite the same way in England up to the Sixties, which may be one reason so many British writers wanting to imitate the American form created American characters and American settings rather the way a Martha Grimes, John Dickson Carr, or Elizabeth George can’t get quite the same traction with the kind of story they want to write in an American setting.
Fun as it might be to write and read I can’t see substituting Michael Shayne for Hercule Poirot, or vice versa with much luck, or Peter Wimsey and Philip Marlowe changing places..
July 25th, 2021 at 11:11 am
Super thanks for such a long detailed list, David. I had many of them in mind when I asked the question I did, but there are many you mention that I probably wouldn’t have come up with on my own, even given a week to think about it.
But what I’m thinking is that none of the above are more than minor players in the PI biz in the overall scheme of things. PI’s don’t seem to fit in very well with they way the British handle crime and mystery fiction, whereas here in the US, they’re part and parcel of American culture.
July 25th, 2021 at 1:09 pm
I really like the series VERA, so I started THE CROW TRAP in ebook a week ago or so, but after less than 20 pages several things came in from the library…and library books come first. I’ll get back to it eventually.
July 25th, 2021 at 1:41 pm
I’ve not read any of the books, either, but I have watched one or two episodes of the TV series.I enjoyed them quite a bit, but I’m going to have to take this review as a reminder that I really have to get back to them.
And the books, too!
July 25th, 2021 at 4:48 pm
Ann Cleeves is a wonderful writer. I’ve just read the first two books in her very good Det. Matthew Vann series.
The Brits do have a huge collection of police procedurals authors including Ian Rankin, Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, Peter James, Kate Ellis, Peter Robinson, Susan Hill, J.D. Kirk, Kate Atkinson, Peter Lovesey, and now the excellent M.W. Craven. And these are just the contemporaries.
July 25th, 2021 at 7:45 pm
One British PI novel I really like is ‘Framed’ by Ron Ellis. Worth seeking out.
July 25th, 2021 at 8:07 pm
His PI is named Johnny Ace, and I believe all seven are available on Kindle. I downloaded one, I misremember which, and enjoyed what I read of it. I just don’t have the mind capacity to read a full novel on Kindle, though, and never finished it. Maybe I ought to try again.
July 26th, 2021 at 5:46 am
LJ’s list is good but I would add Val McDermid.