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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
John Creasey writing as "JJ Marric",
By Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Gideon's Day (Mass Market Paperback)
I picked up this book because of the great John Ford film based on it, otherwise I had been thinking that John Creasey must be a hack if he had written over 600 books! How good could they be? To my surprise I must eat my own words. In fact GIDEON'S DAY is quite good and makes me want to read at least some of the other Gideon books, originally published by JJ Marric. In this one George Gideon is looking forward to his day, but a dozen different problems beset him. Like Ed McBain, Gideon's squad does nothing extraordinary or out of the way, just tries to do their quiet best.
Is this book earlier than the 87th Precinct? Can't work it out. In any case some of the material will be a little bit dated, such as the exclamation points when Gideon rips open a box marked "TEA" having seized a gangster hangout cafe, and "reefers" spill out. But Gideon is wonderfully easy to identify with, easy to like, a man's man with a social conscience and an interesting home life. His wife, Kate, isn't just your average stay at home mom, and Gideon is trying to curb his language in response to having a little 4 year old boy who's picking up on his dad's "bloody" all the time. Now Gideon is trying to say "blurry" in place of "bloody," and getting odd looks from his pals at the shop. (Though in a few places later on, when he gets kicked in the head by an escaping gunman, Gideon lets slip a few more trenchant phrases Creasey masks with an em-dash.) During Gideon's "day" some of the cases get solved, some grow cold. He gets closed to putting away a real bad lot, Murphy, but grows discouraged at others. Gideon and Kate grow unexpectedly closer, and she winds up making him some sandwiches, staying up late for the first time in years, waiting for her man, a nice touch. Now to look up the rest of the series, and to kick myself for having been a snob for years about Creasey's productivity.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Ahead of its Time,
By
This review is from: Gideon's Day (Mass Market Paperback)
This novel covers 24 very busy hours in the life of George Gideon, in charge of criminal investigations at Scotland Yard. There are eight or ten story lines woven throughout the narrative, and probably 25 recognizable characters.
It is good stuff. It is believable and compelling, and while it seems relatively gentle by today's standards, it must have seemed brutal at the time. To recommend it: -- It's a good read -- on a plane, by the pool, in bed before lights out. -- It's interesting historically -- a bit dated, but not in the important ways. Marijuana is treated as if it is the equivalent to crack, for example, and there are racist stereotypes. Chang, the archcriminal, is the classic yellow devil. -- But, overall, Marric creates characters that are distinct and fairly complex, with their share of flaws and virtues. There are bad guys who love their wives, and good guys who are a pain in the neck. -- Particularly striking is the tension between Gideon and his wife, of whom he sees too little. No facile, adoring stereotypical little woman here. They live with pain and stress, just like we do, fifty years later, in another country.
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