CLASSIC CRIME
THE AMERICAN AGENT By Jacqueline Winspear (Allison and Busby £19.99, 350 pp)
THE AMERICAN AGENT
By Jacqueline Winspear (Allison and Busby £19.99, 350 pp)
Facing up to the wartime emergency, the indefatigable Maisie Dobbs, private detective and part-time ambulance driver, takes on yet another role working with American intelligence to solve a murder.
The victim, an ambitious correspondent in her 20s, has made enemies on both sides of the Atlantic — not least her father, a diehard isolationist determined to keep America out of the war.
Nursing injuries after saving a friend from a burning house, Maisie is further hampered by fears that her secret service contact is playing a double game. While there is much here about London in the Blitz, with casualties mounting, Winspear holds us to the central plot point of identifying a killer who is likely to strike again.
As we approach a truth that impinges on the innocent and guilty alike, the emotional pressure is as explosive as the falling bombs.
MAIGRET’S PICKPOCKET By Georges Simenon (Penguin £7.99, 192 pp)
MAIGRET’S PICKPOCKET
By Georges Simenon (Penguin £7.99, 192 pp)
We are on the home stretch of an ambitious publishing venture. All 75 Simenon classics featuring Chief Inspector Maigret have been freshly translated for reissue at monthly intervals.
The latest, Maigret’s Pickpocket, is well up to standard.
Having had his wallet lifted, Maigret is surprised to have it returned, contents undisturbed.
Moreover, the thief wants to meet him. It turns out he’s been wandering the streets after finding his murdered wife in their flat.
Anyone familiar with Maigret’s methods will know that he does not take the easy option of assuming the young man to be responsible.
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Instead, he meticulously reconstructs the crime and finds himself embroiled in the wicked world of movie-making, where the casting couch trumps talent and where temperament quickly spills over into violence.
While Maigret waits and watches, bohemian Paris comes vividly to life.
AND DEATH CAME TOO By Richard Hull (Agora Books £9.99, 222 pp)
AND DEATH CAME TOO
By Richard Hull (Agora Books £9.99, 222 pp)
Accountancy is not a profession one immediately associates with creative writing. But when it comes to crime, the number cruncher can invent plot permutations denied to the less numerate.
This is certainly true of Richard Hull, who took time out from auditing to produce some of the most tantalisingly involved mysteries of the golden age.
This one sees a diverse group of visitors head to a country house expecting a drinks party.
They include four young people with romantic connections, a taciturn woman who disappears without explanation, a school teacher with a line in irreverent pedagogy and a policeman who happened to be passing when he noticed an open door.
Why the host is absent becomes clear when his body is discovered in an adjoining room.
While the twists defy summary, the resolution is satisfyingly elusive until the final pages.
