The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 13 April 2021
by Alan Hunter
George Gently was a popular character in a television series of police procedurals from 2007-2017. He was based upon Alan Hunter's series of novels spanning more than forty years, beginning with this volume in 1955. This book, now 66 years ago already, has a thoroughly modern feel, perhaps because it sets out the formula of the police procedural, the kind in which the intelligent and idiosyncratic protagonist discerns the various undercurrents of intrigue and ultimately talks the suspect into a corner and forces a confession (often on the thinnest of actual material evidence). From page 1, George Gently, inspector from Scotland Yard on vacation in the provinces, is snacking on peppermint creams and enjoying the circus. The wall of death motorcycle stunt quickly expands outward into the murder of a local lumber tycoon. Gently is drawn into the investigation by the local constabulary and pursues a relentlessly quirky line of inquiry punctuated by those peppermint creams.
As Hunter states in a brief foreword, this book is not really a mystery. The ultimate suspect is known to us fairly early on. It is deliberately the story of how an investigator goes against the easy answers and uncovers the true story behind the murder. The various family members and employees of the victim all have satisfyingly complex stories. There is a very British feel to the whole thing, and, given the setting of 1955, a gritty kind of postwar England lays in the background. This thing is fairly common fodder for the countless mysteries and procedurals that come out of British television studios. There is something also satisfying about seeing it in its early literary form. The book is straightforward, full of idiosyncratic characters gently drawn, and has an intricate and artful convolution of time, place and event.
It should be noted that this George Gently bears only partial resemblance to the one in the television show. On the one hand, the TV show begins five years after the time in this novel. Gently's character may have changed over this time. Maybe the two inspectors become more congruent over the later novels. On the other hand, the TV Gently is still a lot like this one, intelligent, perceptive, drawn to the truth, and very British. It remains worth the time to turn to the novels, though, and catch the mood of Gently's milieu.