V J Banis - The Mystery of Bloodstone - Linford Mystery Library

 

V J Banis - The Mystery of Bloodstone  - Linford Mystery Library - Date uncertain

V J Banis is best remembered as a writer on gay issues but had an interesting sideline as the author of a number of gothic novels. 

These sounded tremendous fun so I enlisted the help of my local library service to give one a try.  

One of his works involved a man who finds a skeleton with a stake where its' heart used to be.  That sounded intriguing but unfortunately Derbyshire Library Service were unable to provide a copy. 

Undaunted, I opted for this one. 

The plot sounded promising enough, involving a young woman who feels compelled to revisit Bloodstone Manor, the house in which she grew up, which overlooks a village named Skull Point. 

Accordingly, she sets sail during a raging storm (not just an ordinary storm) accompanied by a servant who is soon found spending her nights attempting to make contact with the deceased.  

Promising enough, and our heroine is soon plunged into a variety of unnerving and ambiguous scenarios, leading her to question the motivations of almost everyone she meets. 

Unfortunately, while the author hints at a variety of promising directions for the story to take, there is a sense that the story gets away from him and the eventual ending is unsatisfying and doesn't make a lot of sense.  

I may well try another of the authors' gothic novels at some point but despite my initial enthusiasm I'd have to say that for me it didn't live up to it's initial promise.  

 

Bunny Bonnitto - Campanherio

George Bellairs - A Surfeit of Suspects - Charnwood - 2022

 

George Bellairs  - A Surfeit of Suspects - Charnwood  - 2022

2022 reprint of book first published in 1964

George Bellairs was a pseudonym used by Harold Blundell (1902-1982)

Harold Blundell aka George Bellairs was never a professional writer despite having 58 novels and a number of articles published. Instead he stayed in his post as bank manager in Rochdale and pursued writing as a paying hobby. 

It's often said that many writers of classic detective fiction treated their stories as a kind of puzzle to be solved, and often seemed set in a kind of hermetically-sealed bubble, divorced from most people's reality. 

This story is nothing like that, with much of the plot centring around  a joinery business in the fictitious manufacturing town of Evingdon which has been hovering on the brink of bankruptcy for some time.  

The author makes great play of the contrast between the expanding new town and the less salubrious old town with it's inadequately lighted streets and rows of terraced houses. 

He also draws on his experience in banking to set out the elaborate scam run by one group of characters, with one company belonging to another company which in turn belongs to yet another as they try to hide the identity of those in charge. 

Style-wise, George Bellairs is usually regarded as an unpretentious writer of rather low-key novels, probably to be found at the lighter end of the crime fiction spectrum. 

I'd agree that Surfeit of Suspects is an easy read, but on this showing, it would be a mistake to underestimate this author.