Forgotten Book - Brink of Disaster

Brink of Disaster is another of Guy Cullingford's stand-alone novels about crime. The book was published in 1964 and has seldom been discussed in the past sixty years. The above cover image of the first edition jacket is of my copy, since there are none on the internet. You might say that it's a low-key book, and it's certainly unsensational, even though it features two murders and the threat of a third. The urban setting is rather bleak and the detective work of the official police less than stellar. None of this sounds like much of a recommendation, but I must say that I found the story extremely readable and I was gripped from start to finish.

The strength of the book lies in the unpredictability of the storyline, coupled with the author's ability to create characters who are interesting even if unlikeable. There's no mystery about the first murder. A man called Robert Cave kills a girlfriend on the spur of the moment. She finishes up in the bottom of the canal, but with the reluctant assistance of some family members, he is able to give the police an alibi, and they aren't able to pin the crime on him. But they are deeply suspicious and it's common knowledge that he's the prime suspect.

A newcomer to the town called Forbes decides to turn Cave's predicament to his advantage by framing him for the murder of his (Forbes') cousin Lucy. This struck me as an intriguing set-up for a novel and Guy Cullingford (whose real name was Constance Taylor) develops it in a very pleasing way. You never quite know what is going to happen next.

Constance Taylor was a member of the Detection Club (my copy is inscribed to her fellow member Michael Underwood, who was clearly a good friend) and her books received positive reviews, but even in her lifetime she was never very well-known. I think this is because she didn't write a series and each book she wrote seems to have been quite distinctive. That isn't really the way to achieve fame and fortune as a crime writer, but she has left a legacy of fascinating and unorthodox stories. I'm now very keen to read the rest of her books.