Chief Inspector Lennox Books
Dust jacket photograph by Richard Davies. His fourth book.
“A form of theft, perhaps? The theft of a life? But if that life is valueless…anything without value is not able to be stolen…basic Criminal Law. No value, not theft – no theft, no murder.” ‘Take Murder’ is an absorbing take of murder, investigation, and detection. Three prostitutes have been murdered, one after the other, and all in an identical manner. The police suspect one of their own number, an officer with dubious tastes who was on the scene very early after the first two bodies had been discovered. He is convicted and locked up. But then comes the third murder, and with it the thought that obviously the condemned man must be innocent. Thus is presented the legal quandary; the law is never wrong – but are law and justice the same thing? As always with John Wainwright, this compelling story proceeds at a great pace. And once again the narration is subtle, giving away only as much as the author chooses. There is excitement on every page, surprise and irony at the end. Book Dust Jacket
Criminal story with social criticism implanted. Well written without losing its attraction to be read. Once you started, there is no boundary of time to stop you.
A man has been sentenced to eighteen years for rape. He is released after twelve, and returns to a wife who wants, in spite of everything, to stand by him and help him. But the man has other ideas. Men convicted of rape are not well-treated by their fellows in prison. This man, sensitive and civilized, had been treated very badly indeed. And he didn’t consider that he’d committed rate at all. In his view he’d been framed – “set up”. The people he blamed for framing him play a large part in the story that follows. There are also, as always with john WAINWRIGHT’S NOVELS, THE POLICEMEN; IT IS THE FAT, TOUGH, KINDLY Superintendent Lennox who uses all his energy and acumen to try and sort things out as they head towards a multiple, disastrous climax. John Wainwright is always a subtle and original storyteller. He has outdone himself here by the use of narrative techniques that make this new novel absolutely compulsive reading. Book Dust Jacket
Lennox, a former police officer and an ex-con, returns to society and organizes a vigilante group to combat rampant crime and seeks personal vengeance against the murderers of a good friend, a Chief Superintendent
First edition hardcover with unclipped dust jacket, in very good condition. Light shelf wear to the jacket, and page block and page edges are tanned. Pages and text are otherwise clear and bright throughout. LW
The murder of local troublemaker Jimmy Doyle is greeted with relief by most, but Chief Inspector Lyle's findings about the killer prove more troubling than Jimmy ever had been