Forgotten Book - Don't Whistle 'Macbeth'

David Fletcher is an author I enjoy reading. His real name was Dulan Barber, and he was quite a prolific and versatile novelist who produced a dozen crime novels as Fletcher. He died young, of a heart attack, when he was only 48 and I think this accounts in part for the neglect into which his work has fallen. He was a talented exponent of psychological suspense.

Don't Whistle 'Macbeth', published in 1976, is rather different from the other Fletchers that I've read. It's an interesting attempt to blend a whodunit plot with an operatic background and a sort of belated 'coming of age' story involving the narrator, David Kingsley-Grieff.  A gimmick is the inclusion of 'programme notes' by Brigid Brophy, who in those days was a high profile figure in the literary world. The setting is a posh country estate which is home to a recently revived opera festival, which is about to stage Don Giovanni.

The author was an opera lover, and the background is very well-realised. The festival is put on by a rich but troublesome chap called Hugo, who has a failing marriage to Leonie and a beautiful but wayward daughter, Petronella, from a previous relationship. David has taken an admin job at the festival mainly because he is infatuated with one of the performers, a woman called Dorcas. But then murder occurs and David becomes not only a suspect but also a potential victim.

The story is capably written and the plot is quite sound, even if one or two pieces of behaviour aren't in keeping with the realistic tone of the narrative. David, I fear, is a rather irritating character. Even the dust jacket blurb acknowledges that he is priggish. So I didn't care quite as much as I should have done about his tangled love life and his attempts to solve the puzzle. I also found the explanation for the mysterious whistling of the title to be rather an anti-climax. Even so, it's a book that's worth reading and Fletcher certainly deserves not to be forgotten.