Tuesday, September 13, 2016

GIDEON'S FIRE





Shop Indie Bookstores



Gideon's Fire, J J Marric (pen name of John Creasy), Harper, 1960, 208 pp


Another of the five books read from my 1962 list in August was this Scotland Yard mystery, winner of the 1962 Edgar Award. J J Marric was a pen name used by John Creasy, who was so prolific that he wrote under 18 different pseudonyms and published over 600 mysteries! Gideon's Fire is the eighth of 22 books in his Gideon Series.

George Gideon is the Commander of the Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard. He has a wife and four children, all of whom he loves dearly and who also feature in the book, but it is his job that he devotes himself to and that defines him. Conscientious, honest, a good leader, but perhaps a bit overly hands-on with the cases.

He arrives at work an unusual 30 minutes late to learn that a terrible fire the previous night had killed an entire family, leaving many other tenants burned and in shock after their whole tenement building was consumed. Adding in the rape/murder of a 14-year-old girl and two other time sensitive investigations, the man has his hands full.

As the story progresses, the fire turns out to be one of many, probably set by a psychotic arsonist. One of the murder cases begins to look like the work of a serial killer. In fact, the plot blows up like a raging fire. By the third chapter the reader is living all the stress right along with Gideon.

Though it is a rather standard police procedural, Gideon's Fire has a couple unusual features. The criminals in each case are included as characters with their own actions and thoughts covered by the same third person narrator. Thus the reader gets the story from both sides, adding even more tension.

In the end the Yard's Criminal Investigation Department prevails but there are deaths and disasters along the way. Gideon feels bad about those, as any good law enforcement professional would. In fact, the author makes you feel bad too as he takes you into Gideon's mind.

Another different feature though is that this man is not cynical, he is not being beaten down by his job or any of his superiors or even by the prevalence of crime in the vast city of London. He knows what the odds are, he knows he is competent, and he stays on top of the game. Refreshing I thought.


(Gideon's Fire is available in paperback by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

9 comments:

  1. I read several of these books so many years ago that they've become just very faint background noise in my mind. I can't really remember too much about them other than the fact that I must have liked them a bit because I did read several. As I recall, I got into them originally because of a mystery book club that I was in at the time. Thanks for reminding me of my long ago reading habits!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As I was typing in my review, I thought if anyone in my blog universe has read this book it has to be Dorothy! Was the mystery book club a real life one or one where you got books in the mail?

      Delete
    2. Both, actually. It was real life but we got a lot of our books by mail.

      Delete
  2. That feature of Gideon you described in the last paragraph is certainly an exception among all detectives in crime fiction.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know. That is what I thought too.

      Delete
  3. John Creasy...hummm - I must admit I had not heard of this book (Yes, I'm still learning.) but it sounds intriguing. And I love mystery stories :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well I had not heard of him either until he came up on my list. It turned out to be a good discovery!

      Delete
  4. Oh why does it say 1960? Then he won the award in 1962? Just curious. 600 mysteries?!! Wow that must be a record.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Because back in the day, the Edgar Award wasn't all up in the present like most awards are now. Also, sometimes a novel has a copyright date a year earlier because the book gets released right near the beginning of a new year.

    ReplyDelete