In 1932, former Inspector John Madden of Scotland Yard has returned to the bucolic countryside.
The Maddens have purchased a farm in Surrey, England, the Inspector, his wife, Helen, and their two children Rob and Lucy living quietly together. When he first met Helen, a physician, John was a lonely widower and expected never to find happiness again.
Passing through Brookham, John and Helen run into Will Stackpole, a colleague from one of Madden’s former investigations into a series of brutal murders over a decade ago. Now a constable, Stackpole requests Madden’s help with the disappearance of a young girl. Madden and Stackpole discover the girl’s mutilated body hidden by a stream that runs near a tramp’s camp.
A man who has survived because of his instincts, Madden is increasingly concerned about the brutality of the crime and certain aspects that suggest the work of a serial killer. Deferring to the local authorities, Madden offers a cautionary word to Scotland Yard should their expertise be required. Other crimes of a similar nature are indeed uncovered, and the Yard takes over under the direction of Chief Inspector Angus Sinclair. Sinclair assigns Billy Sykes to help with the investigation. Both men are close friends of the Madden’s, featured in Airth’s previous novel, River of Darkness.
Coordinating with the Yard, Sykes liaisons with Madden in the limited capacity Madden’s over-protective wife allows. Helen is still anxious about her husband’s health since the last case, when Madden was injured. The investigation throws a wide net, hoping to snag a serial killer with unhindered movement, possibly from continent to continent, camouflaged by his position and able to cover his tracks.
The country is still reeling from the Depression of the ‘30s, the brutal murders tracked by detectives who are also concerned with an evolving political climate, the entire mystery shrouded in the threat building in Europe where Jews are increasingly the target of random attacks. In the delicate balance of relations between England and Germany, the political ramifications are immense, Germany asserting itself, building up to the regime that will ultimately change the course of world history.
Airth melds the world of the serial killer with the current affairs of the 1930s with an implication that there is more afoot than meets the eye, a protected identity escaping through porous European borders. The killer is finally in their sights, but before the monster can be brought down, diplomatic complications arise, hindering the investigation.
As artfully written as River of Darkness, this book’s only disappointment is a lack of involvement by Madden, thanks to his wife; fortunately, other memorable characters are expanded to fill the void. The author’s incisive observations of human deviance and police procedure are joined in a taut thriller that brings back the menace of Hitler’s Germany in prose evocative of quieter times when even the threat of war captured every nation’s attention, and evil was easily identified. On the brink of great societal upheaval, this novel is an excellent portrayal of dedicated men caught in the crossroads of history.
Originally published on Curled Up With A Good Book at www.curledup.com. © Luan Gaines, 2005
Courtesy of http://thebookmarque.blogspot.com/2006/11/blood-dimmed-tide-by-rennie-airth-2006.html
The memory of the first John Madden book has also dimmed, so I can’t compare this to that. One thing that gets on my nerves is his wife; she just wants him to be a placid little stay-at-home, farmer type and he is not cut out for that. When a man has to sneak around behind his wife’s back to solve a crime and feel like he’s using his talents to their fullest – Houston, we have a problem. Why should she get to dictate how he lives his life in such a basic area? It’s obvious that he’s in his element when battling wits with a killer, why prevent that? Sure, it’s dangerous, but it’s also dangerous to let this fester until it becomes a marriage-breaker.
With that aside, I liked the police procedural quality of this book. There were some areas that I found suspect – like when someone brought in a forensics team. Were there forensics teams operating in rural England in the 1930s? Doubtful. But the rest of the reasoning and clue-finding rang true. Like the bit about the car and tracing its owner. The obvious suspect turned out not to be the killer, but that person pointed the way to the killer. The fact that the British government covered up years worth of crimes reminded me of the Vatican covering up theirs.
The portrayal of men out of work and the different paths their lives took was also interesting. On the one hand we had the typical vagabond type guy – mostly harmless and willing to put in a little work so he could buy his booze or whatever. At first a couple of these men were suspects, but there wasn’t a huge dragnet type effort made and the cops and citizens both seemed to respect these men’s ways of life. Then there was the more upright individual portrayed by Eddie – he lost his job after returning from the war and would do anything, even very hard labor, to support his family. He was earnest and forthright and I knew he was doomed – he’d either be framed as the killer or murdered by the killer. It was very sad when it turned out to be the latter – it was so final, no room for redemption.
No answers were given for the killer’s motives other than general psychosis or a twisted psyche. His torture of small animals as a child was mentioned and again I wondered if anyone would think of drawing a parallel. As far as I know, this general tendency of young psychopaths wasn’t borne out until the latter half of the 20th century. I’ll have to delve into some of my forensic texts to see if I can pinpoint this or the general accepted use of a CSI team.
Later; I did some cursory checking for this in some of my forensic casework books and found that while some scientific approach was taking place at the time (and even earlier), it was isolated in both technique and locale. Only larger, more publicized cases seem to warrant scientific investigation. Even then, only one or two techniques were used to pinpoint one or two aspects of the crime; identification of the victim seems to be the most prevalent. This leads me to believe that there could have been scientific analysis of this fictional crime at this place and time, but a team of scientists dedicated to solving crims (a CSI team) would have been highly unlikely. But, this is fiction after all so the liberty is not too extreme.
Posted by Thorn at 7:41 AM
Pictures courtesy of Tim Rudwick from his grandfather's collection.
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