RogerBW's Blog

Dangerous Davies: The Last Detective, Leslie Thomas 06 May 2017

1976 comedic detective fiction; first of Thomas's novels of "Dangerous" Davies, barely-competent and perenially unlucky detective constable in Willesden. Set to look for a local criminal who might have returned to the area, Davies turns this into an investigation of a twenty-five-year-old disappearance.

He's known as "dangerous" because he isn't, and as "the last detective" because he's never sent on a job unless there's nobody else or they all think it's too risky. He knows all the local crooks and has been beaten up by most of them. This could be an intriguing underdog's story, but unfortunately Thomas chose to play it for laughs. So Davies is also the funny sort of alcoholic; he lives in a rented room with a horrible landlady; he entirely lacks suspicion or caution; he has an ancient car in which his ancient dog Kitty is permanently asleep. All this is presented as so intrinsically funny that there's no need to do anything with it; you can practically hear the laugh track.

It's a shame, because the actual mysteries are potentially interesting. The disappearance of Celia Norris in 1951 is a quarter-century cold case, but there was a reasonable amount of investigation done at the time, and Davies begins by talking to the suspects, then branches out from small pieces of new information to develop further leads. He doesn't put much together himself, instead mostly being friendly enough that people spill what they hadn't thought to say before; though he gets blind drunk with one information source, and casually beats up another, as well as compromising evidence all over the place. (Yes, I know, forensic DNA analysis wasn't developed until 1984, but there were still fingerprints.) Both mysteries are solved in the end when Davies is persistent enough in following unlikely leads to get him to people who will volunteer the information he wants – which is a bit like Simon Brett's Fethering Mysteries series, and while it's an unconventional approach it's not unworkable.

But everything here is old and tired and tawdry, most definitely including the characters. There is nobody here who isn't in some way broken. The humour is of the "this person is horrid" and "that person is strange" flavour. I started to hallucinate the smell of unwashed old bodies, which seems to permeate every scene even when it isn't explicitly mentioned.

Followed by Dangerous in Love and two further books, but I don't intend to read them.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech aviation base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2022 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1