After a long stretch away from mysteries – I suppose I’m at a moment in life where I am looking for more certainty, not less – I recently read Edward Grierson’s The Second Man, the winner of the 1956 Gold Dagger.
A trial novel, it felt somewhat distant to me given both the time period and my lack of familiarity with how the English court system works. Barristers, solicitors, chambers, the Temple. All words I’ve seen in passing but that lack the depth that could, perhaps, have pulled me a bit deeper into the plot. The narration already lent a certain distance that I found unusual in a court drama. Our protagonist, Mr. Irvine, is a “lawyer” (I’ll use my American terms, thank you) who acts as a host to a new, female (!) lawyer who has joined his chambers in Yorkshire and works with her on her first big case. Irvine himself is thinly sketched, and acts as a stand-in for the reader. While he, perhaps unsurprisingly, develops feelings for his new partner – alluded to deftly but, by modern standards, rather shallowly – and greatly admires her legal work, the trial lacked the oomph that we might expect from the sub-genre some seven decades later.
To be fair to Mr. Grierson, he has all the building blocks that his descendants in the trial drama still use to this day, and he deserves praise for his foundational work. We have the witnesses, the lies, the police, the character of opposing council and judges, the client whose guilt the reader first doubts, then believes, then doubts all over again in a pleasing if rather simple cycle of tension and release.
And yet, it isn’t really enough. Without spoiling too much, the client – a ne’er do well nephew accused of murdering his aunt – is something of a caricature, deeply unlikeable, and more to the point perhaps unbelievable in his course of actions. He seems to exist to create work and dilemmas for his lawyers rather than as a sympathetic character or symbol driven by rational (if not transparent) emotions. As Irvine himself is a pair of eyes for us to gaze through, that leaves Marrion, the new female lawyer, to carry the weight. This being 1956, her sex and Irvine’s reflection upon it takes up a fair amount of space. There’s nothing unexpected here, and indeed I would be inclined to view Mr. Grierson (or at least his characters) as quite progressive for the era, but in 2022 it doesn’t do much. The pacing is, at least, brisk enough that while there are times we feel like the novel is dragging its feet, it moves quickly enough to be an easy read. Quite unremarkable, would be my overall judgement.
With the exception of the fact that Mr. Grierson has some very nice lines. His strongest moments are, in fact, when he allows Irvine to gaze inwards. “I have always been susceptible to the feel of past events.” “We are deeply faithful to our prejudices too.” “How greatly our own discomforts outweigh the tragedies of others!” The simple but beautifully polished prose reminded me of how I admired Ross MacDonad’s prose in The Far Side of the Dollar, even if, like The Second Man the actual plotting was lackluster. I suspect that certain lines and sentiments of Mr. Grierson will long outlast my memory of the plot of this particular novel – still a victory for the book, no doubt, simply not the sort of victory we expect the author to be aiming for when we pick it up.
Overall, The Second Man is thoroughly in the middle of the pack. I suspect, had Mr. Grierson been born two or three decades later his work would be much closer to the top, but 70 years and the comparatively shallow bones of the book compared to the modern trial drama make it difficult to put on a pedestal today. I will note that, even as I peruse the list of novels ranked below the top ten, I have mostly impressions as opposed to detailed memories, and so much of this is going my feel as much as anything else.
Updated ranking:
- Dick Francis – Whip Hand
- Peter Temple – The Broken Shore
- John le Carre – The Honourable Schoolboy
- Ian Rankin – Black & Blue
- James Lee Burke – Sunset Limited
- Mick Herron – Dead Lions
- Colin Dexter – The Wench is Dead
- Jose Carlos Somoza – The Athenian Murders
- Ross Macdonald – The Far Side of the Dollar
- Winston Graham – Bridge to Vengeance (The Little Walls)
- Sara Paretsky – Blacklist
- Edward Grierson – The Second Man
- Michael Robotham – Life and Death
- Lionel Davidson – A Long Way to Shiloh
- Minette Walters – The Scold’s Bridle
- Patricia Cornwell – Cruel and Unusual
- Ruth Rendell – A Demon in My View
- Arnaldur Indrioason – Silence of the Grave
- Bill Beverly – Dodgers
- James McClure – Steam Pig
- Gene Kerrigan – The Rage
- Emma Lathen – Murder Against the Grain
- Steve Cavanagh – The Liar
- Paula Gosling – Monkey Puzzle
- Barbara Vine – A Fatal Inversion
- John Hutton – Accidental Crimes
- H.R.F. Keating – The Perfect Murder
- Peter Dickinson – Skin Deep (not recommended)
Not ranked (in chronological order):
1963 – The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, John le Carre – familiar with the work already from the film and le Carre’s general notoriety.
1988 – Ratking, Michael Dibdin – I love the Aurelio Zen TV films so much I suspect I have seen them at least three times by now, so the book would hold no surprises for me.
2001 – Sidetracked, Henning Mankell – Wallander was and is gateway drug to all Nordic noir. I’ve seen the Swedish series several times and the (inferior) British one once, so alas this one would also be too predictable.
2006 – Raven Black, Ann Cleeves – The Shetland series made by ITV struck an interesting note for me – the mysteries themselves were perfectly enjoyable but the landscape and unique prospect of the Shetland Islands is what made it stand out. Having re-watched it a few times, Raven Black is a familiar friend, and so holds no mysteries for me.
smq.world 