Forgotten Book - Sky High

I first read Michael Gilbert's Sky High (1955) when I was a teenager, so perhaps it's understandable that on returning to it recently I'd forgotten most of the story. What I wanted to find out was whether it was as enjoyable as I recalled - not his best book, for sure, but agreeable entertainment. The short answer is that I liked it even more the second time around, because the intervening years have given me a better understanding of writing craft. And I was able to admire Gilbert's subtle techniques for achieving his effects in a way that was beyond me all those years ago.

This is an English village mystery, though the characters make a couple of excursions into London, which isn't far away - Gilbert's British-based books were almost invariably set in the south east. It's also a story in which his great love of music comes to the fore. He doesn't draw on his legal know-how this time, but the shadow of two World Wars looms over the storyline, as it often did in Gilbert's books.

We begin with a choir rehearsal. The start is low-key and is character- rather than incident- based. Liz Artside, a widow who is in charge of the choir, and her enigmatic son Tim are key figures, and their circle includes the elderly General Paling (whose lovely grand-daughter Sue is adored by Tim) and the council chairman Bob Cleeve. Tim becomes aggrieved when Major MacMorris, also a member of the choir, takes a shine to Sue, and we also learn that there has been a long-running spate of burglaries in the area. Indeed, the US title of this book was The Country House Burglar. But the main criminal drama early on is just the theft of a couple of pounds from the offertory box in the church.

Gilbert takes these disparate and perhaps unpromising ingredients and fashions a story that gathers pace while continuing to engage and, quite often, amuse, from start to finish. There is genuine excitement in several scenes, and Gilbert's description of the use of explosives seems wholly authentic to me. This isn't one of his best-known novels, but it's a really good read.