Review: Give a Man a Gun - John Creasey

When I was checking out books from the bookmobile in the early Sixties, the fellow who drove it out to our little town every Saturday allowed me to get books from the adult fiction sections even though I was only 10 years old. John Creasey was a popular author in the mystery section, and I read and enjoyed several of his novels featuring Inspector Roger West of Scotland Yard. West, nicknamed Handsome because he’s, well, handsome, stars in 43 novels published between 1942 and 1978. Since I remembered liking them and hadn’t read any in more than 60 years, I decided it was time to give the series a try again.

So when I was in Recycled Books in Denton recently, I picked up several of them, and I just read GIVE A MAN A GUN, originally published in hardcover in England in 1953 by Hodder & Staughton as A GUN FOR INSPECTOR WEST and reprinted in American paperback by Berkley in 1963. That’s the copy I read in the scan, somewhat the worse for wear because of age (as am I).

A murder has already taken place when this one opens. A pawnshop owner and dealer in stolen merchandise has been knifed. This killing sets off a string of events that lead to an organized campaign of violence directed against London’s police force. Several cops are shot and killed and numerous others are wounded in gun and knife attacks. The newspapers set up a howl about this and demand that the police be armed. Vigilante groups form. Roger West is in charge of the effort to get to the bottom of this and keep the violence from getting worse.

This is basically a police procedural novel, so a lot of pages are taken up with interrogations and following suspects around, interspersed with scenes of West’s home life. He’s married and has two young sons. For a book with a bunch of murders in it, there’s very little action on-screen, although everything does lead up to a satisfying slam-bang climax.

I enjoyed GIVE A MAN A GUN, but I have to admit I found it slightly disappointing and thought it didn’t quite live up to my good memories of the series. I think this is because the plot really just meanders along and despite the dangers facing the characters Creasey doesn’t generate much urgency or suspense for most of the book. As I said above, it does end well, and Roger West is just such a likable protagonist that I want to read more about him. Maybe this just isn’t one of the better entries in the series. I’ll certainly read the other two I bought, and if nothing else, I’m glad to have renewed my acquaintance with the character after all this time.

Introducing the Toff - John Creasey

I read quite a few mysteries by John Creasey when I was a kid because all the libraries had them, but only a few about the Hon. Richard Rollison, the gentleman adventurer known as the Toff. They always seemed a little tame to me. I preferred Creasey’s books about the Baron and Inspector Roger West. But I recently read the first book in the Toff series, INTRODUCING THE TOFF, first published in 1938 and expanded from a novella that previously appeared in THE THRILLER in 1933. There’s nothing tame in this yarn about the Toff’s battle against an international drug smuggling ring known as the Black Circle, which includes a sinister Egyptian and an American gangster.

This book is good old-fashioned British blood and thunder, full of gunfights, fistfights, car chases, and explosions. It’s reminiscent of Sax Rohmer, Edgar Wallace, and very much of Leslie Charteris’s The Saint, a character also introduced in THE THRILLER. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I’m told it’s not really representative of the series as a whole. I have a few more Toff novels on my shelves and may read them if I can get around to them. This one is available as an e-book on Kindle Unlimited, and I recommend it if you want a fast-moving, action-packed yarn with a likable hero.

Forgotten Books: The Death Miser - John Creasey

I think I’ve mentioned before that I read a lot of British mysteries when I was in junior high and high school. One of the authors I read regularly was John Creasey. His books were readily available in all the libraries where I checked out books, and they were usually pretty entertaining. I was introduced to Creasey’s work by the TV series THE BARON, which wasn’t a very faithful adaptation of the character but was enjoyable enough to make me seek out the source material. Most of the Creasey novels I read featured either The Baron, Inspector Roger West, or Commander George Gideon, although I think I read one or two of the Toff series, as well.

One series I never read—until now—was Department Z, about a top secret branch of British Intelligence that used mainly civilian operatives, all under the command of spymaster Gordon Craigie. The first book in the series, THE DEATH MISER, is available as an e-book, so I decided to give it a try.

The protagonist of this particular novel is foppish, wealthy young playboy James Quinion, who has a double identity as hardboiled secret agent Jimmy Quinn of Department Z. (Are there any foppish, wealthy young playboys in fiction who are really what they seem to be, or are they all secretly crimefighters of some sort?) Craigie assigns Quinion to keep an eye on a suspicious character who happens to be staying at a cottage next door to the country estate of Quinion’s aunt, and sure enough, within a few pages Quinion has clashed with said suspicious character, who’s beating a dog. (A literal dog heavy, to use a B-Western term.)

That starts the plot galloping along, and before you know it, there’s a murder in a London nightclub, disguises, secret passages, bizarre weapons, and a plot to take over the world. Quinion gets hit on the head and knocked out a few times, falls for a beautiful girl who may or may not be trustworthy, takes part in numerous chase scenes, and finally saves the day and reveals the mastermind behind everything.

This novel was published originally in 1933, and Creasey revised and updated it for a reprint in 1965, which is the version I read. I wish he hadn’t – let books stay in the era for which they were originally intended, I say – but in this case the updating seems really minor, a mention of Hitler and a few other things but nothing that actually affects the story. And the atmosphere is definitely still the Thirties. Creasey seems to have been influenced by Leslie Charteris. Quinion recruits a couple of his friends to help him in his battle against the bad guys, and they reminded me a lot of Roger Conway, Norman Kent, and Monty Tremayne, Simon Templar’s sidekicks. The villains in THE DEATH MISER are also very reminiscent of the villains in THE LAST HERO and THE AVENGING SAINT.

At the same time, a lot of the trappings of this book, as well as a secret meeting of the bad guys that Quinion manages to get into, reminded me a great deal of GOLDFINGER, so I have to wonder if Ian Fleming ever read Creasey. I have no idea, but it seems possible.

Even the updated version of THE DEATH MISER is really dated, but it’s also a lot of fun. Creasey knew how to keep a yarn racing along. I know I have several paperbacks by him on my shelves. I may pull one of them out and give it a try before too much longer.