These books were published in 1975 – these particular ones I mean, they were written and published in the States in the sixties. I bought them because I was intrigued by the covers, and I think I bought them second-hand. They are about a disgraced ex-detective who begins to take on private investigations to help finance his family. I bought another two in the same series, ‘Kinds of Love, Kinds of Death’ and ‘Murder Among Children’ and I must have read them almost a dozen times over the years. I didn’t realise that there was a fifth in the series ‘Don’t Lie To Me’.
Tucker Coe is a nom de plume, one of many, of Donald Westlake, an American writer who was born in 1933 and died in 2008. I can’t find who designed these covers, and the other two books I have are published not by Sphere but by No Exit Press and have a different style of cover.
The five novels are about Mitch Tobin whose partner was killed because Mitch was having an assignation with the wife of a criminal… Mitch has betrayed his colleague and friend, the police force, and his own wife and son. The books are not just about Mitch solving the mystery but about him coming to terms with what he has done and his guilt, and trying to rebuild his life with his family.
The last time I read it I found that I had a different attitude to Mitch; I began to feel annoyed with him that he was so self-centred, and seemed almost to be hiding within his guilt to avoid, almost wallowing in it rather than trying actively to reconnect with his wife who seems to have forgiven him. This last time of reading, I didn’t like Mitch much and couldn’t understand why his wife would want to stay with him, or why some of his friends still wanted to help him.
Putting that to one side, they are great stories, especially the two I have pictured here, and with an unusual plot…. especially ‘A Jade in Aries’.
Lois Elsden 