Bill S Ballinger - The Longest Second - Mystery Book Guild - 1958
An absorbing read, with a touch of the Ed McBains about it.
The principal story told in this novel is of a man who wakes up in a hospital ward suffering from amnesia. He has a severe cut to his throat and it is unclear if this was due to an assault or a suicide attempt. He is told by a detective that his name is Vic Pacific, an identity they have established by checking his fingerprints against army records as he served in North Africa during World War Two.
The second story concerns two detectives investigating the case of a man found dead with very similar injuries to the throat. They too check his fingerprints man`s against army records and they too find their man is Vic Pacific !
The larger part of the story is given over to the first man`s search for his own identity and the things he learns about himself along the way.
For him, people seem to fall into two categories, those who are useful to him and those who are not. He sees others as "phantoms" that he never really connects with and whose feelings, as often as not, are just an annoyance to him.
Few will warm to his central character, but Ballinger , a prolific and experienced writer, keeps the readers` interest throughout.
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