NEW THRILLERS
Fresh crab
PETER PARLEY
The Flaxborough Crab Colin Watson (Eyre and Spottiswoode 25s) The Voyeur Henry Sutton (Hodder and Stoughton 35s) The Man with the Tiny Head Ivor Drum- mond (Macmillan 25s) On the Stretch John Welcome (Faber 28s) Turn up a Stone Alexander Cade (Bles 21s) Evil in a Mask Dennis Wheatley (Hutchin- son 35s) Drums Along the Khyber Duncan MacNeil (Hodder and Stoughton 25s)
Ever since Colin Watson first turned his ribald and penetrating eye on the sleepy village of Flaxborough, it has been obvious that a master of comic fiction was amongst us. His latest offering of rural lore presents the alarming spectacle of Flaxborough's senior citizens revitalised by Miss Lucilla Teatime's patent Samson's Salad, 'prepared from the genuine lucky fen wort', and pres- sing their renewed virility on all and sundry. Detective Inspector Purbright finds more in it than mere fen wort when he investigates the alarming suggestions made in church to Mrs Pasquith (who distinctly heard a voice in her ear whispering 'I'm a bee and I want to pollinate you'), and ex-cinema- commissionaire Grope's insistence on what Mrs Grope calls his 'conjuggling rights'.
The best piece in a splendid book is Mr Watson's account of the Trent Street Darby-and-Joan club outing, which cul- minates in a wild-flower competition, won hand over fist by the aged but knowing Mrs Crunkinghorn with snappy identifi- cation of 'piss-a-bed', 'tickle-tiny' and 'Old
,,tian's Vomit'. Flaxborough enthusiasts can now acquire the three previous novels in one volume, called The Flaxborou Chronicle (Eyre & Spottiswoode 45s).
Rather more laboured is Henry Sutton's The Voyeur: 'Who is Irvin Kane, this eccen-
tric genius who has ripped away the last
Victorian veils in his Tomcat magazine?' Well, at a guess I should think Hugh Hefner comes rather close to the mark. Briefly, the plot consists of a determined public attack on Irvin Kane and the Tomcat philosophy after a particularly brutal murder, appar- ently instigated by the inflammatory nature of the Tomcat Kalendar Kitty cutouts found plastered all over the suspect's room. In the best Perry Mason tradition, the climax is reached in one of those ineffably boring courtroom scenes which are de rigueur in all long American novels.
The Man with the Tiny Head makes a pleasant change after so many villains with heads of global proportions and schemes of similarly cosmic grandeur, a trend which seems to have begun with the Mekon of Dan Dare fame, a villain who, as I dimly remember, was all head and no body. How- ever, this is a disappointingly thin effort. and I looked long and hard for evidence of what one enthusiast has called Mr Drummond's scalpel analysis, his brilliant prose and masterly plotting. The Man with the TH is a blackmailing white-slaver, and his plans are foiled by an unlikely American millionaire, a craggy Italian count and an aristocratic dolly from the Kings Road.
John Welcome is among the liveliest of thriller writers and his successive adventures of Richard Graham, former amateur joc- key, are infused with a love of the turf and a wealth of equine detail which give them a charm denied most- adventure stories. On the Stretch has Graham attached to the Irish racing stables of Sam Hanaker. an aggressive millionaire, with a roving com- mission to prevent any nefarious attempt on his prize-winning horse by a discontented neighbour. Graham soon finds that. there is more going on than a quick first look round the stable yard would suggest, and is swiftly embroiled in an attempted missile theft; the book includes a vivid account of a day's hunting and seems equally at home in the spy-ridden underworld.
A good location piece, Turn up a Stone, from Alexander Cade, has a Bangkok set- ting and much curious detail concerning Thai strip clubs and dope peddling, un- covered by a young publisher's agent sent out to investigate the death of his prede- cessor. Lastly, two period pieces; the first from the accepted master of the genre. Dennis Wheatley, is of quite staggering length and as packed full of historical characters as a cake with currants. Roger Brook, master spy and gentleman adven- turer, rattles round Napoleonic Europe plot- tirig away with Talleyrand, Metternich. Czar Alexander, Sydney Smith and Sir John Moore, meanwhile hopping in and out of the boudoir with Persian princesses and Portuguese ladies of sadistic temper. As he started his tortuous career back in the French Revolution he will be getting a bit past it by the time Mr Wheatley bring' him up to Waterloo. Drums Along the Khyber has a stirringly predictable ring about it, and those who respond to the sound of the pipes and the thin red line will find much to entertain them in Duncan MacNeil's account of the career of a young subaltern finding his feet on the North West Frontier. It must have been made into a film long before it was written.
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