W.J. Burley published The Schoolmaster in 1977. By that time he was a well-established crime writer. Having started out with an amateur detective, Henry Pym, he'd begun to focus on a series about a cop based in Burley's native Cornwall - Charles Wycliffe, later a telly cop. Clearly he wanted to spread his wings further (in 1978 he'd venture into science fiction, an experiment he didn't repeat). So he wrote a stand-alone novel whose protagonist was a teacher - as was Burley.
The Schoolmaster is a book that juggles with the reader's expectations. At first it seems as though it may develop into a conventional inverted mystery, as introverted Arthur Milton is deserted by his wife, who goes to live with another man and takes their teenage daughter with her. Milton seems bent on revenge - but this impulse quickly fizzles out.
Then it seems that we may be dealing with a cold case story of psychological suspense as Arthur's connection with a crime of the past gradually emerges. Or is the story a whodunit? Or essentially a character study? It is a fairly short novel, but Burley kept me interested from start to finish.
So this one gets a thumbs-up from me. My main reservation is that Arthur isn't an easy man to warm to. The urban setting is drab, deliberately so, and the same is largely true of the characterisation. I would have liked to care more about Arthur's fate and his prospects - if any - of redemption. Burley admired Simenon, and one can detect the great Belgian's influence in this story, as one can in the Wycliffe series. Burley would go on to write two more crime stand-alones, Charles and Elizabeth and the excellent The House of Care. Each has merit, each remains well worth reading.
How was the sf novel? Have you had the opportunity?
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