I tend to buy British Library Crime Classics whenever I come across them, and have been lucky enough to have quite a few as review copies – but it seems like I don’t get around to actually reading them as much as I’d like. So I went for the shortest one I own with a name in the title, for a meeting of projects – step forward Sergeant Cluff Stands Firm (1960) by Gil North. It was the first in a long series of crime novels with Sergeant Cluff at the helm.
I will say ‘crime’ rather than ‘detective fiction’, because North seems to be more interested in the psychology of the investigating sergeant, the victim, and the probable murder than with a twisty, turny novel. I prefer the twists, but I was willing to get on board – and I liked that Sergeant Cluff is a mainstay of his little village. When he begins to explore the death of Amy Snowden, we’re quickly aware that Cluff knew her, her recent (much younger) husband, her neighbour. He knows everyone, and they all know him – and his father before him – because this is rural England in the 1960s. It’s something that other members of the force can’t quite appreciate properly.
I did like Cluff and his humanness – his pity for the ill-treated, and his quiet thirst for justice. What I liked rather less is how misogynistic this novel is. At first I thought maybe it was just some characters who were misogynistic (why, for instance, is everyone transfixed with the idea of a woman marrying a younger man?) – but it saturated the novel. I am not exaggerating when I say that no woman is ever introduced without her breasts being described. This includes the dead woman. Seriously, there was one character whose breasts were mentioned every time she was mentioned. It felt like satire.
So, this wasn’t a massive success for me. If it had had a brilliant detective plot, I might have been able to latch onto that and set aside other elements of the novel – but since North was going for the higher ground, as it were, that option isn’t left to me. So… I guess I enjoyed some elements of it, but it left a nasty taste in my mouth? I’d definitely read another Sergeant Cluff novel, because I liked him – but I hope that the author has grown up a bit in the interim.
I absolutely agree. I read it a year or so ago and pretty much the only thing I can remember about it is the icky obsession with breasts. I recall some quite good atmospheric writing in a “gosh the 1960s were grim” way, but mainly the breasts…
Also read this last year and resolved not to read another, for many of the same reasons. Will be interested to see if you read another, Simon, and how that one rates.
Yes, Susanna, felt that grimness as well.
Thanks, I’ll definitely dodge this one. I’ve read quite a few of these reprints and so far for about 50% of them it’s a mystery to me why they’ve been chosen to be reprinted.
I buy them for the cover art… and if I’m honest, the nostaligia. But with the nostalgia comes a lot of lazy/ prejudiced gender and race stereotypes. And some are just plain awful plots – The Lake District Murder springs to mind as one with a plot so dull I’m surprised it was ever published in any era.
Thanks Simon! Unfortunately I had an emergency appendectomy today and it hurts when I laugh so this part of your review:
I am not exaggerating when I say that no woman is ever introduced without her breasts being described. This includes the dead woman. Seriously, there was one character whose breasts were mentioned every time she was mentioned. It felt like satire.
had me howling for pain killers. I have go to read the book now (maybe when I’m better). I couldn’t cut and paste the italics for some reason, probably just as well because they made it more delicious.
I have often been tempted by these books, like Merenja, for the covers, but quite a few of the reviews I have read have not been promising, and that was before the comments I have just read on here. I shall wait for charity shop buys, though the irony is people will probably keep them for the covers. Oh no, I’m laughing again – “Nurse!”
Well, this was written in the 60s and I’m guessing that what we see today as misogyny was perfectly acceptable back then. Plus, some books just don’t age all that well…
Hmmm. I think I had heard this before (possibly in a review from Ali?) Annoying and perhaps unnecessary – yes, some books don’t age well but not *all* books from that era are like that. I won’t rush to read this one, particularly as there are so many other good BLCCs! Does Martin Edwards mention the subject at all in his intro??
I do exactly the same – buy BLCC and then they sit there. I really need to read them!
This was one I have actually got round to reading & I agree with Susanna – I read it a while ago and the main thing I remember is getting annoyed about the relentless focus on breasts.
Ha! Yes, I remember his breast fixation too, but I enjoyed this one nevertheless. I see I said in my own review “I was going to comment that this was probably to do with the time of writing but then remembered how often I’ve sighed over the same obsession in some contemporary male authors!”
It took a bit of time to get used to his writing style but I seem to remember enjoying the atmosphere he created on the moors at the end. I did read the other one the BL released too – The Methods of Segeant Cluff – and thoroughly enjoyed it too, and you’ll be happy to hear that I noted in that review that his breast obsession “seems to have disappeared. (Perhaps some kindly woman hit him over the head with a hardback copy of book 1 – if so, thank you!)” ;)
I really liked the Seargent in this book, and the Yorkshire setting. Overall it was very readable but all the descriptions of breasts were absurd, very much of the time I suppose but utterly pointless. I would like to know whether the other books are like that – it would rather put me off bothering.