Review of A Capital Crime by Laura Wilson (2010, Quercus)

Winter, 1950. A young woman and a 14 month old child are found dead in a washhouse behind a terraced slum in London. The husband confesses to the murders, though he proves to be a congenital liar, constantly changing his story. It seems like an open and shut case and John Davies is convicted of the crime, largely on the evidence of another resident of the house, Norman Backhouse, and hanged. A couple of years later, the bodies of four recently disappeared women are found in the house and two more are buried in the garden. The key suspect is the Backhouse. It seems like a terrible miscarriage of justice has occurred, unless two different murderers had been living in the same house at the same time. DI Ted Stratton had misgivings about the first case, and they’ve come back to haunt him. Meanwhile, ex-war time agent, Diana Calthrop, finds her life sliding backwards as two marriages fail leaving her in dire straits, and Stratton’s daughter finds herself struggling to make sense of her sexuality, and neither woman should be wandering London when so vulnerable.  

The third book of the DI Ted Stratton series fictionalises the events at 10 Rillington Place, where two sets of murders occurred in the early 1950s sending two men to the hangman. The first murderer was convicted in part on the evidence of the second one, casting significant doubt on the initial investigation, trial and guilty verdict. The cases subsequently led to two inquiries, though their findings were inconclusive, and influenced the decision to end capital punishment. In Wilson’s telling DI Stratton is the lead officer in both cases. He has misgivings while investigating the death of a young woman and 14 month old child. John Davies is a simpleton with a temper who continually tells lies. Some of the evidence doesn’t quite add up, but most points to Davies, who has also confessed. And everyone involved in the case, including Stratton, think him guilty. When a couple of years later, six more bodies are discovered in the house and garden, Stratton wonders if he’d made a terrible mistake, despite the evidence and confession. Along with the investigation, Wilson spins two other threads through the story, both of which are hooked around women’s sexuality and position in society. The first follows Monica Stratton as she enters the workplace and starts to question her sexual identity. The second focuses on Diana Calthrop, a woman Stratton holds a flame for, and her fall from grace as she divorces her first husband and quickly enters another doomed marriage. In part, these are included to provide a thread through the series, but they do add to rather than detract from the story arc. The result is a very nicely plotted tale that is very strong on exploring the psychological side of investigating emotive cases with criminals who constantly lie and charting character development, in particular, Stratton, Monica and Diana’s lives. The pacing, atmosphere and sense of place and time adds to the telling. Overall, the strongest book in the series, in my view.

 

Review of An Empty Death by Laura Wilson (2009, Orion)

Summer, 1944. The Blitz is over but London is still being hit by doodlebugs. DI Ted Stratton and his wife Jenny head to aid those affected when one lands two streets away, Ted helping to dig Mrs Ingram from the rubble. The next day he’s called to investigate the death of a doctor from the Middlesex Hospital. He’s been found dead on a bomb site and it appears he’s been murdered. For mortuary attendant Sam Holt, Dr Reynold’s death is an opportunity to take on another identity, one he’s been working up to for years. He changes his appearance, assumes someone else’s identity and finagles his way into a job as a casualty doctor, learning the trade on the go and from books. His life is looking up, especially after he starts to date a pretty nurse. However, he hadn’t anticipated the tenacity of DI Stratton to solve the murder, or that others might see through his disguise. Having come so far, Dr Dacre is prepared to protect his new life, even if that means killing anyone trying to expose him. Meanwhile, Ted is getting tired of his wife and her sister caring for Mrs Ingram who appears to be suffering from a rare mental illness after her traumatic rescue. 

An Empty Death is the second book in the DI Ted Stratton series set in London during the Second World War. In this outing, Stratton is investigating the suspicious death of a doctor on a bomb site. His nosing around the hospital that Dr Reynold’s work at quickly ruffles feathers and spooks one doctor in particular – Dr Dacre is an imposter that has used Reynold’s death to pass himself off as a medical doctor and take over his position. Meanwhile, Jenny Stratton is helping to care for a bomb victim who is suffering from mental health issues, creating tensions at home. Wilson tells the tale as three main strands: Stratton’s investigation, Dr Dacre’s perspective, and Jenny’s care of Mrs Ingram. Wilson patiently unfolds the plot, in particular fleshing out the main characters and filling out their backstories. The pace is a little slow at times and the Ingram strand felt a little bolted on for much of the story, but eventually it comes into its own as the three strands are pulled tight. Rather than finish the story at the main climax – which is a twist with real affect – Wilson does a nice job of letting it continue to unfold to another twist and natural denouement, though this one was telegraphed from a long way out. Overall, an engaging police procedural with emotional depth.

Review of The Riot by Laura Wilson (Quercus, 2013)

August 1958 and DI Stratton has moved from the West End to Notting Hill, one of the poorest neighbourhoods in London.  Over the previous decade many Caribbean migrants have made the locale their new home and racial tension is high, often tipping over into violence.  For Danny Perlmann, a Polish refugee and holocaust survivor, the area represents a business opportunity.  He’s been building up a property folio, buying and subdividing houses and renting them to anyone who wants them regardless of colour or occupation, including prostitutes.  When Perlmann’s civil minded rent collector is murdered, Stratton is assigned the case.  Not long after one of Perlmann’s renters, a black man that the locals think is dating a white woman, is stabbed to death on the street.  Whilst upper class do-gooders try to keep the lid on the simmering cauldron, Stratton tries to solve both murders before the place erupts into riots and running battles.

The strengths of The Riot are the characterisation, sense of place and time, and social contextualisation.  DI Stratton is a strong and interesting lead and the book is full of a diverse set of well defined and vividly penned characters.  There is a strong sense of London in the late 1950s as the social mix of some neighbourhoods start to change, and Wilson does a good job at conveying the social realities of working class life and the tensions around change.  Indeed, the story works well to weave issues of race (both Black and Jewish) and gender through class and capital.  And the plot is intriguing and quite complex.  That all said, the story is let down a little by its pacing and balance.  Prior to ‘the riot’ the storytelling is quite slow and there is a lot of unneeded detail.  For example, on his initial visit to the house in which a murder occurred Stratton laboriously meets everyone in the building and others nearby, most of whom never reappear in the book and who tell him little of importance.  After ‘the riot’ things speed up somewhat, but there’s sometimes not enough fleshing out or reveal as to what is going on, especially with respect to the Perlmann’s empire.  Overall, an interesting and entertaining story that’s nicely contextualised.

Review of Stratton’s War by Laura Wilson (2008, Orion)

In London 1940 the body of an aging silent film star is found impaled on street railings. It is ruled as suicide, but Detective Inspector Ted Stratton is not convinced, especially when a short while later her room is turned over and her friend beaten up. Ordered to move on to other cases, Stratton keeps digging, looking for clues as to why the woman had fallen to her death. Meanwhile, the young, upper class Diane Calthrop has been recruited by MI5 and directed to infiltrate the Right Club, a group of high powered socialites that advocates appeasing Nazi Germany. Unbeknownst to each other, Stratton and Calthrop are working on intersecting puzzles and slowly they are drawn into each other’s orbits around a plot that threatens national security just as Germany starts the blitz.

Stratton’s War is part of the burgeoning number of crime novels using the Second World War as its backdrop. The intersection here of MI5, police and London underworld makes for an interesting story, and the double, intersecting plot lines of Ted Stratton and Diana Calthrop is for the most part well constructed. Wilson has managed to capture the class divisions and social order of London, and the sensibilities and lives of those working and living in the city. The book recreates the tense, claustrophobic atmosphere of the time and portrays a strong sense of place. However, for all its positive attributes, there were a few things about the novel that undermined my reading experience a little. First, the character and role of Ted Stratton felt somewhat dislocated from his status, especially in the first half of the book where the way he acts and the role he plays seem incongruous. He effectively acts as a sergeant – out and about making enquiries, working for the most part as a lone detective. There is little to indicate he is a Detective Inspector in CID, where he would be running a large team, directing several others to do the kind of basic work he’s doing. This status is also missing in his dealings with his brother in law – he lays out the law to hardened criminals, but is a meek as a mouse to his bullying family member. Second, the workings of the police are extremely simplified in terms of station organisation and dynamics. Several dozen people would be working out of a London city centre police station, but the impression given is just a handful do so. Third, there is a significant subplot that ultimately goes nowhere at all and is left hanging, and the coincidence with respect to a family member was unneeded and unlikely. Finally, the book is too long. Certainly a good fifty or more pages could be cut out, which would serve to increase the pace and dramatic tension. Overall, an entertaining read, but a little undermined by some flaws in the realism of character and context, and unnecessary length.