Forgotten Book - Dominoes

John Wainwright was a former police officer who became a prolific crime writer. As I've mentioned before, he was successful in his day, but his reputation has not survived his passing. There's a tendency, I think, to dismiss him as a mass-producer, which he certainly was - but there was more to him than that.

Wainwright was a much more ambitious novelist than some might think. A good example of the way he tried to stretch himself as a writer can be found in Dominoes, published in 1980, at the time when Wainwright was about at the peak of his powers. It was his fiftieth novel, and The Times called it "gripping, and worryingly memorable".

The story begins brilliantly, with a passage narrated in the first person by a man who describes the moment "when I decided that I must kill Gerald Morley". The reason is clear - Morley is being blamed for the suicide of the narrator's wife, a teacher. It looks as though we are in for a conventional form of "inverted mystery". But then the story shifts and we are presented with a wilful young woman who fleetingly crosses the narrator's path; she is wealthy but unkind, with a snobbish disdain for the poor and vulnerable.

I thought the build-up of tension was extremely well done. This part of the story was indeed gripping. The trouble is that the second half of the book is less satisfactory. Wainwright is venturing into the realms of psychological suspense, and links in a police investigation, described with his customary crisp authority. But for me, a key psychological revelation fell flat, because I didn't think it adequately foreshadowed - not the first time I've encountered this with Wainwright - and I felt somewhat frustrated. There is a really good book in here, trying to get out, but I think that it can't be counted a complete success. And this is where, I suspect, Wainwright sometimes went wrong - because he was so industrious and productive, perhaps he didn't devote quite enough time or thought to exploring the complex psychological behaviours he was seeking to portray. But I admire the way he took risks with his books, and wasn't content to stick to a formula. This novel is a good example of his considerable strengths as a novelist, as well as his limitations.

Forgotten Book - Cul De Sac

It's safe to say that John Wainwright is a forgotten author, even though he died not much more than twenty years ago, and was publishing until near the end. In fact, he published more than 80 novels, almost all of which benefited in some way from his years of experience as a police officer in Yorkshire prior to become a busy full-time novelist.

I once met John Wainwright in the late 1980s. This was at a Liverpool library event. I was asked to take part on the basis of my work as a reviewer - I hadn't published a novel at that time. The other authors involved were Eileen Dewhurst, who became (and still is) a very dear friend of mine, and the late Roger Ormerod.

I was pleased to meet Wainwright, whose books I'd read and admired, but I found him taciturn in the extreme, as if keen to play up to the stereotype of the cantankerous Yorkshireman. He didn't seem interested in either the event or the questions asked by the audience, but this may well have been due to shyness. Roger Ormerod, also rather reserved by nature, I think, was much more gracious. Having read his memoirs recently, I don't doubt that Wainwright was a nice chap if you really got to know him, I just think he was utterly out of his comfort zone, as someone who seldom attended author events. The contrast with the exceptionally pleasant Peter N. Walker, also a former Yorkshire cop, and a highly convivial man, was striking.

Wainwright's books use to crowd the library shelves, but after his death, his reputation faded. He wrote too quickly, as so many authors do, and the quality of his work was variable, but I think that at his best he was a fascinating writer. Cul De Sac, published in 1984, earned high praise from Georges Simenon, no less. I found it an intriguing study of character and of police work.

It begins with a diary extract - shades of Gone Girl! In some ways, Wainwright was ahead of his time. The diary-maker's wife meets an untimely end, falling over a cliff. Accident, suicide, or murder? An obsessive detective, Harry Harker, sets  out to find the truth. It's a highly readable story. My only quibble is that the excellent final twists did not seem to me to be adequately foreshadowed, a flaw that could easily have been remedied. It's a book of its time. But I liked it a lot.