Death's Darkest Face is Julian Symons's 27th crime story, and its appearance coincides with an award (the Diamond Dagger) for his long service to the genre. This isn't quite enough for his publishers, keen to promote the book as a proper novel rather than another addition, however distinguished, to their crime list. The implied claim that, despite the format, it's serious stuff not only revives old and no doubt perennial problems about how to take this sort of fiction, but also echoes the author's concluding comment that, in this case, he's been less interested in puzzle than personality. There's some disingenuousness here, since the mystery is quite elaborately contrived and its solution, or solutions, artfully withheld. All the same, the appeal of Death's Darkest Face goes well beyond eventually finding out how the crime actually happened and who done it.

LRB 28 June 1990 | PDF Download