1984 mystery, second in the Robert Amiss series. Amiss is seconded to
industry… well, to a dead-end privatised offshoot of the Civil Service
where all the unemployables are sent to rot. And then people die.
Superintendent Milton is back, and the interplay between him and
Amiss (and sometimes Milton's wife Ann and Amiss' girlfriend Rachel)
is the real joy of the book. The work side of Amiss' life is pretty
grim, among a bunch of no-hopers who mostly haven't quite realised
that they've been shuffled sideways to a posting where they can't do
any damage.
This is a more conventional detective story than Corridors of Death,
without the deconstruction that was a subtext there; these people all
seem like potential murderers. I found the motivations (both the
actual one and the red herrings) a bit lacking, and never engaged much
with the suspects. The cast is substantial, since it comes to include
the wives of most of the men, and slightly ambiguous, since they're
sometimes referred to by first name and sometimes by surname; I found
it worth keeping a check-list of who was who. (Particularly since
quite a few of them manage to break out of the stereotypes a bit
later.)
For the most part the story is a timeless one, though there are some
sudden reminders of its setting: an investigation into the older men's
history of National Service (which had still been happening to a very
limited extent as late as 1963) stood out more to me than the lack of
mobile phones.
The dialogue is excellent, even among the no-hopers; the mystery is
less engaging, and I wonder slightly whether it was mostly an excuse
for writing about the people. (But without the spice of murder it
would be a much duller book.)
Still, jolly good, and doesn't outstay its welcome. Series recommended
by Gus. Followed by The English School of Murder.
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