Journeying to Wales and Scotland has been likened to a walk along
a pier - going abroad without getting seasick. A crime story set
in North Wales has the advantage of the Welsh dialect and speech
rhythm - although the philosopher Sir Walter Raleigh did say "The
Welsh are so damn Welsh it sounds like affectation".
Evan Evans is a likeable, well-educated, young police constable
in the village of Llanfair. Missing children, a returned
paedophile, two climbers found dead on nearby Snowdon give him
the intrigue, crime and pain he thought left behind in the Swansea
force. He is intelligent, brave, sensible and ultimately proves
his worth in capturing both the rather shadowy multiple murderer
(for a third body is found on the mountain), another small girl
missing and a harmless but threatening lunatic.
This first book in Britain has several plus marks and one or two
minus. It is written with humour - one lady does even say "look
you". There is neat, apt but not overwhelming description
of an area which I do know. It is not like some crime books a
textbook on mountaineering. Evan is the target of various young
women especially the attractive schoolteacher and the pneumatic
barmaid. There are cunning red herrings to divert him. There are
no tedious love scenes to hold up the smooth action. This first
'tecker by Janet Quin-Harkin writing as a masculine Rhys Bowen
(and strangely described as "him" in the copyright clause)
is to establish a repertory company which must mean the peaceful
village will have as many crimes as a city as Sherlock Holmes
stated. Evans politely takes the schoolteacher through the back
door of the Red Dragon on a Sunday in this wet area as I recall
entering an inn on a Sunday in a dry area!
The minus marks can be erased by a trifle more research in Britain
or better proof-reading, as current living in San Francisco may
explain. For examples, the two first corpses are described as
wearing between them, stout boots, running shoes and hundred-pound
shoes. Someone asks why Scotland Yard hasn't been called in -
which has not happened for years. Evans cautions the murderer
making the mistake Agatha Christie made of saying the words could
be used against him - oh, no, it couldn't.
Another very good bonus point is that Alison & Busby have
dropped the imitation Penguin plain covers in favour of graphic
illustrations, which, if you look closely, give a clue to the
mystery as did those beautiful Adams covers in paperback for Agatha
Christie. The formula for a murder mystery quoted by Haycraft
is one-half Sherlock Holmes, one-quarter P. G. Wodehouse,
one-eight sheer adventure and one-eighth anything you know best
- Mrs. Quin-Harkin has followed this formula successfully to prove
a worthy new recruit to the classic ranks.
