I always enjoy Michael Gilbert, and I have written here before about his masterpiece of murder and legal shenanigans, Smallbone Deceased. However, he was so prolific that I am still finding new books, and have recently read two for the first time: Flash Point and Ring of Terror. They are very different, but both very readable, and I enjoyed them both.
Flash Point is typical Gilbert – a contemporary setting (London in the 1970s, at a guess), and a smart but very irritating lawyer who has discovered something very discreditable about a member of the Cabinet just before an election. He finds evidence of the cover up, and evidence of the original crime, but has set in motion dark forces from “the Establishment”, which try and sabotage his efforts, and the efforts of a sympathetic journalist. After a few twists and turns, a sort of justice is done, although the difficult lawyer never brings his case – preferring to retire to the country and stoke up trouble for a local landowner who has blocked a right of way. A good read, well written and almost plausible!
Ring of Terror covers more typical Gilbert ground – the efforts of the police to prevent foreign terrorists mounting a campaign of bombing in London for political reasons, but it is set (uniquely, for Michael Gilbert, as far as I know) in an historical context. In fact, the action takes place in London around 1912-13, and the terrorists are Russians. Two young policemen, Luke Pagan and Joe Narrabone, friends from school in the country, are in the forefront of the battle; they have many adventures, not all of them very believable, as the story has not only the setting of an earlier age, but is written partly in that style, homage or friendly parody. All, of course, turns out well, after some hair-raising narrow escapes and plenty of exciting action.
I’m off to Abebooks to see if there are any more Michael Gilbert I haven’t read.
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