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The Suffocating Night

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In the fourth installment in Andrew Taylor's Lydmouth series, the Korean War is raging, and the town is shadowed by the threats of Communism and nuclear war. Freelance journalist Cameron Rouse travels to town to write a story about homeless squatters who have taken over an abandoned military camp. Lydmouth's MP, Oliver Yately, visits in hope of stamping out the sparks of a sexual scandal. The police superintendent reopens a three year old cold case, the disappearance of a local teen. The local pub owner is dying of cancer, while his younger wife comes on to his customers. And the stage is set for murder.

DI Richard Thornhill undertakes the case in his usual painstaking way, and his investigation leads him to believe that the murder and the disappearance are somehow connected. The Suffocating Night is a fine police procedural, but on a deeper level, it's a novel about betrayals. In addition to work, the married-with-children Thornhill must grapple with a betrayal of his own, his growing attraction to local news woman Jill Francis. Both people of integrity, for them it's a painful struggle.

Taylor takes his readers into the minds and hearts of all the characters, and the events that transpire are beautifully plotted. The suffocating social mores of 1950's England inform the decisions and actions that each of them make. The outcome of the case comes as an unequivocal surprise, not only for the reader but for characters themselves. First rate fiction; this author deserves a much wider American readership.

First Sentence: Announcements - Parry, Heather Margaret: With all our love on the anniversary of the day you went away, Mother, Dad, Keith and Granny. The Lydmouth Gazette, 18 April

It's a busy time in Lydmouth. An abandoned military camp has been taken over by squatters, but the military wants them out. Journalist Jill Francis receives an unwelcome visit from her former lover, a married Labour MP. DI Richard Thornhill has been asked to look into a 10-year-old disappearance. Right-wing journalist Cameron Rouse has been found murdered in his hotel room. And who is the man with the fish?

With British soldiers fighting in Korea, the fear of Communism, expectation of World War III and fear of a Russian invasion, Taylor's book paints a vivid, and not altogether flattering, picture of life and attitudes in a small English town in the early 1950s.

The sense of time and place are just two of the elements of his writing I enjoy. Another element is his characters. His characters are realistic. He is not a sentimental author. The disdain of a London journalist for the town's residents is only one example of attitudes that are portrayed. His protagonists are by no means perfect. There are past and future issues impacting their lives which give a thread to run through the series. All this makes the characters very real and makes me want to both learn more about them and see how their lives progress.

Taylor's plotting is so well done that I forgive him the use of a portent. The first chapter is an excellent set up for a murder. There are several threads and lots of good twists which culminate in a rather surprising resolution.

This is not a fast-paced, high suspense thriller. It is a very well done traditional mystery that kept me thoroughly engrossed.

THE SUFFOCATING NIGHT (Pol Proc-Richard Thornhill/Jill Francis-England-1950s) - VG
Taylor, Andrew - 4th in series
Hodder & Stoughton, ©1998, UK Hardcover - ISBN: 0340695978