Clues, criminals, and crackers

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 34031, 20 December 1975, Page 10

Clues, criminals, and crackers

The Skeleton at the Villa Wolkonsky. By Chapman Pincher. Michael Joseph. 252 pp. U.K. price £3.25. Communist activities in post-war Europe, political intrigue, and undercover intelligence operations in Rome, are used by Mr Pincher to flesh out the bones of the skeleton found in the grounds of the Villa Wolkonsky. In 1940 the villa was a Gestapo headquarters; in 1954 it is the British Embassy. There are two questions to answer — the identity of the skeleton, and the timing of its discovery. Mr Pincher’s answers to these questions have produced an unusual novel, marked by workmanlike handling of a complicated plot, and an authentic background of life in Rome. But the characters have little substance, and the complications of the plot are unravelled too slowly. Mr Pincher is noted in English journalism for his political disclosures in the fields of security and defence. Here he

has become rather too involved in his own intelligence network. Regan. By lan Kennedy Martin. Arthur Barker. 168 pp. N.Z. price $5.05. Detective Inspector Jack Regan is rough, tough, and a loner. He keeps his job because he is the best detective in the Sweeney — the Flying Squad (Sweeney Todd). His abrasive methods and his apparent insolence and insubordination produce results — a record number of cases solved and successful convictions. And only the criminals complain. Mr Martin, creater of the Thames Television series, “Regan,” gives his tough cop a tough case — a violent and sinister conspiracy to rob an American bank in London with the aid of the I.R.A. Provos. Regan also has to cope with an equally tough San Francisco cop, Lieutenant John Ewing, who is hunting a police killer in London. Ewing upsets Regan’s love life, and provides a startling climax to a first-class, authentic police thriller. A Necessary End. By Stephen Harper. Collins. 172 pp. N.Z. price $5.10. General Franco died peacefully in a hospital bed. El Supremo, the veteran general and virtual dictator of Rospania, dies in an entirely different way — he is hoist by his own double, not his petard. Dictators have used doubles to lighten their ceremonial load or to make the task of wouldbe assassins more difficult. But in a totalitarian State the practice can be dangerous, and if the people cannot distinguish between dictator and double, the situation is ripe for exploitation by other power seekers. Mr Harper, who is chief foreign correspondent of the “Daily Express,” knows Spain and Spaniards well. His portrait of a dictator could almost have been drawn from life, and his fictional Rospania is almost completely Spanish. Against an

authentic background he presents a story of mounting tension in which generals fight for power after the Head of State is assassinated in the Cathedral of Heroes. But was it El Supremo or his double? Mr Harper provides the answer, sustaining the tension and uncertainty until the inevitable •<— and necessary — end. Columbo. A Christmas Killing. By Alfred Lawrence. W. H. Allen Star Book. 155 pp. N.Z. price $1.40. The Rockford Files. By Mike Jahn. W. H. Allen Star Book. 141 pp. N.Z. price $1.50. Once upon a time trade followed the flag. Now the books follow the television series. These two paperbacks are original stories based on the series about Lieutenant Columbo, of the Los Angeles Police Department, and Jim Rockford, the private eye who investigates , only cases marked “closed" by the police. In “A Christmas Killing” Columbo has to solve a murder in a Los Angeles department store just before Christmas. His. suspects work in the display department, and are preparing Christmas window displays when the murder is committed. The apparently puzzled little min with unruly black hair solves his case appropriately on Christmas Eve. Mr Lawrence catches the pre-Christmas spirit of Los Angeles, and makes Columbo as attractive in print as in pictures. Jim Rockford is a different kind of detective. He is tall, prefers jeans and a tee shirt to a suit, and is a tough ex-convict (framed, of course) who knows the criminal mind. In "The Rockford Files” he discovers the connection between an old wino found strangled on a beach near Los Angeles, and the marriage of a Las Vegas chorus girl to an elderly millionaire. Mr Jahn provides plenty of action, a dash of romance, and a gun battle between Rockford in his car, and the villains in a light plane.