cover image Blind Brag

Blind Brag

John William Wainwright. St. Martin's Press, $14.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-312-01737-8

Wainwright has more than 30 novels to his credit, many of them top-notch British procedurals. In his latest, he gives this expertise a twist, coming at the same complex set of events from two angles. Harry Thompson was an investigative reporter before hanging out his shingle as a private detective in the Yorkshire town of Rogate-on-Sands. When the local chief inspector asks him to talk to a young man who has turned up at the station with complete amnesia, Harry's suspicions are piqued. But not adequately or soon enough, and before long he finds himself the go-between for the owner of an international construction company and the gang of East African terrorists who have kidnapped his daughter. With Harry trapped in a moving furniture van, along with the kidnapping victim, the point of view switches to a man named Dilton-Emmet who since WW II has done dirty work for the British secret service. Events earlier seen through Harry Thompson's eyes take on a significantly more political cast as related by Dilton-Emmet. He moves the story forward, first in England and then to its conclusion in the African country. Wainwright is a deft hand at plotting and sharp characterization, and there are no failures in either here, yet the tale suffers from an interior imbalance and is, for his author's work, uncharacteristically unsatisfying. (August)