From the criminal record

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33609, 10 August 1974, Page 10

From the criminal record

A Big Enough Wreath. By William Garner. Collins. 254 pp.

Henry Howard Harper, who began life as a foundling in an orphanage becomes a multi-millionaire with large interests in the electronics industry and in kindred matters affecting national security. In response to a taunt during a television interview he promises that he will make his name known to posterity. Somewhere in the stratosphere there is a satellite with its maw full of atomic detritus waiting to be spilled on the unwary at the touch of a button. Harper knows how to press the button. This causes unease among highly-placed men in Britain, the United States and China. They feel that Harper should be removed quickly, but he has disappeared. Secret Service men of three countries have to find him and render him harmless.

A 16-year-old boy, son of an agent, is an electronics expert. Somehow he tangles himself in the satellite’s communication system and moves the satellite. This produces thrust and counter-thrust as everyone tries to prevent the big bang.

The Loo Sanction. By Trevanian. Heineman. 282 pp. This anonymous author’s hero — an American art professor and former spy called Jonothan Hemlock — is offered to readers as “the James Bond of the Seventies.” It is an insulting comparison. This sick, sordid book with its titillating title has as much similarity to lan Fleming’s writings as the “struggles of Gay Lib have to tl Charge of the Light B gade. And this comparison apt. “The Loo Sanctio would be beneath notice

it was not a particularly grizzly example of a disturbing trend in pornography — an adventure tale just clever enough in itself to sustain the distance from one perverted “sex and death” incident to the next. It is without redeeming literary merit; its “high” points should disgust and outrage those who think of themselves as human. It ought to have had no place in print.

Deep Among The Dead Men. By John Blackburn. Cape. 191 pp.

This is a fast-moving adventure story told by Bill Easter, a tough soldier of fortune with elastic-sided morals, a good working knowledge of explosives which he several times turns to good effect, and an unfortunate likelihood to be given the dirty jobs in an expedition to recover gold from a slave-trading vessel sunk long ago in the harbour of newly-emerging state in West Africa. Easter’s companions are a ruffianly crew who, when the way opens for searching for gold, find the going far from simple — quite apart from several murders which hold up progress. The finding of the gold reveals a surprising hiding place, and the action involved in its recovery has plenty of tense incident. Perhaps the characters have the exaggerated dimensions found in an operetta about pirates, but the book offers sustained entertainment. The Poison Oracle. By Pete Dickinson. Hodder anStoughton. 191 pp. In the small Sultanate o Kut, Wesley Morris is igaged on the study of -mmunicating with chim anzees by means of '.nguage. A clever one amed Dinah can pick up oloured signs each of vhich could indicate a imple clause. She lives in a zoo of the Sultan who was interested in the expert raents.

Nearby lives a tribe o marshmen bound to- the Sultanate by a treaty, un written but expressed anel preserved in song. Morris is sent on a mission to the marshmen, who are suspected of instigating the Sultan’s murder. There is a large deposit of oil under their land but they are not so primitive as not to know its value. The marshmen have many unpleasant habits, and they put Morris on trial for witchcraft. From this he is rescued, the murderer is identified and justice is seen to be done.

“A Jade In Aries." By Tucker Coe. Gollancz. 173 pp.

A strange and somewhat sad tale, of a homosexual community in New York, murder and its attempted solving by means of astrology, “A Jade in Aries” maintains a tense atmosphere and its characters are clearly delineated. Jamie Dearborn, partner of Ronald Cornell in a “wayout” men’s clothing shop, is found murdered in their apartment, and Cornell sets out to find the killer. He engages Mitchell Tobin, a dismissed policeman who

is trying to rehab « himself psycho;ogica / gather the necessary ”?a:erial f r cast '.g I scopes of six suspect J friends of the dead m Tobin, however, bee more closely associ.r- . with the problem .... his will, and soon fmt. himself in difficulties. M ( -t of these are caused by Manzoni, an irascible a-.| b u 11-headed policeman whose prejudiced opposition to the investigation and all concerned in the case creates formidable problems. Another murder gets Tobin more involved than before. Odd Job. By Pat Flower. Collins. 191 pp. This is a macabre novel, set in Sydney, and written by an Australian writer who has shown in the past that she can handle this type of fiction very well indeed. Ned Paine is an elderly upholsterer and owner of an antique shop. Although outwardly he seems normal, he and reality sometimes part company. His wife is a dull woman, unsuitable for him and nags continually at him to sell his property. When Ned is given a large sofa to restore he thinks it would make a good coffin for his wife. He disposes of her in a messy fashion. Ned’s old friend and helper, Harry, also has a wife who has become redundant. Ned helps Harry to remove his partner. By this time Ned’s wife, though ipparently dead, will not iie down, and the local oolice become inquisitive. Pat Flower tidies up a * oriy situation in an igenious fashion.