Book Review: The Dead of Winter: A John Madden Mystery (9780670020935): Rennie Airth: Books
Book Review: The Dead of Winter: A John Madden Mystery (9780670020935): Rennie Airth: Books
A six-star read by a great mystery writer,
By S. McGee (New York, NY) -
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)
The only problem with Rennie Airth’s work is that those readers like myself who have discovered his books have had to wait so long between each novel. But when the results are as good as this, that feels like a very minor quibble indeed, because John Madden, the detective that Airth has conjured up from thin air, is just as compelling a personality as P.D. James’s Adam Dalgliesh.
Madden, a veteran of the First World War, solved his first mystery in Airth’s excellent River of Darkness, set in the aftermath of that bloody conflict. Airth’s second mystery featuring Madden — now married and much more content as a gentleman farmer, although he can’t resist using his skills to solve a series of horrible murders of young girls — was set in the early 1930s, just as the first hints were taking shape of another global war. Now, in Airth’s third novel, it is the winter of 1944. While it seems clear that Germany will be defeated, Londoners are exhausted by rocket attacks, rationing and the brutal winter weather. Rosa, a young Polish refugee, works on Madden’s farm, has traveled to London to visit her only remaining relative. Emerging from a Tube station after the ‘all-clear’ signal, Rosa sets off for her destination through the blacked-out nighttime streets — where she encounters a murderer.
But was Rosa’s murder, first seen as horrible act of a madman, really a random crime? John Madden becomes increasingly less confident of this and the events that follow seem to bear out his instincts. Is there a connection to the brutal murder of a Jewish furrier in Paris on the eve of the German occupation of the city — an event that may have been witnessed by a young Polish couple who, themselves, were trying to flee the Nazis and travel to England?
Airth’s hallmark is intricate and careful plotting, combined with wonderful character studies. In this third book, he not only brings back favorite characters from the first two books, such as Madden, Angus Sinclair of Scotland Yard and Madden’s former sergeant, Billy Styles, but also introduces new ones who immediately grab our attention, such as the young policewoman determined to become a Scotland Yard detective despite that organization’s rampant misogyny. Airth is never didactic — he shows and never tells, the hallmark of a good storyteller. I actually found myself feeling what it might have been like waiting for the Germans to march into Paris in June of 1940; what it was like to grope one’s way through pitch-black streets and colliding with other pedestrians; the biting cold of a winter where fuel supplies were rationed.
What I enjoy most about Airth’s books is the pacing; the way he unveils, step by step, the full dimensions of both the crime(s) and its solution. There are twists and turns aplenty along the way, but never anything that strained my credulity. Delivering a real surprise — one that me sit up and go ‘wow!’ — that isn’t too well-telegraphed in advance is a real art, and Airth has mastered it. And the tension in the final scenes, when Madden comes face to face with the killer, is beyond description. It reminded me of sitting and watching one of those classic murder mystery or horror films, where you get so caught up in the events on the screen that you find yourself screaming at the hero(ine) from your seat in the movie theater, or putting your hands over your eyes and slinking down in your seat. In the case of this book, the marks of my fingernails are still visible in the dustjacket of the (British) hardcover and even made an imprint in the binding itself. The dramatic tension caused me to damage it badly enough I couldn’t sell it as a ‘like new’ copy. But then, why would I want to sell it at all? This book, like Airth’s others, is so good that I expect I’ll be re-reading over and over again, even though I now know whodunnit. That’s how good this author is.
Highly recommended to anyone who loves a great mystery. Fans of Alan Furst will particularly enjoy both the setting and the slightly ‘noir’ atmosphere, although Airth’s books are, at heart, police procedurals rather than suspense novels. If you’re looking for something else set in the same time period and place, try Laura Wilson’s The Innocent Spy. (Published under the title Stratton’s War in the UK). Wilson’s novel emphasizes psychological suspense and the relationships between principal characters more than Airth does, and involves espionage as well as detection. It’s very good, but I prefer Airth’s book by a nose; it felt more convincing and more focused.
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