The Galloway Case and Death Beneath Jerusalem

Andrew Garve is an author I've mentioned before on this blog, and a good example of someone, successful in his day, whose work is reaching a new audience through digital publishing. I had read a few Garves in the past, but I wasn't especially interested in his work. However, when Bello started to reissue his titles as ebooks, I took a closer look - and I've really enjoyed what I've discovered.

Many prolific writers are variable in the quality what they produce. It's almost impossible to write dozens of books of uniform quality. I think that in my earlier encounters with his books, I read a couple of relatively unsatisfactory stories. But, although it's tempting and almost inevitable, one should not judge an author on a brief acquaintance. I have been impressed by the last few Garves that I've read in Bello ebook editions.

He was primarily a thriller writer rather than a specialist in whodunits, but The Galloway Case is a very entertaining story about a young man who falls for an attractive but mysterious woman while in Jersey, and finds himself trying to prove the innocence of a man who has been accused of  murder. There's quite a bit of stuff about crime writing in this novel which made it especially appealing to me. A very good read with a number of neat twists.

Garve was a pseudonym - his real name was Paul Winterton, and he was a journalist. But Garve was obviously a name he liked, because in his very first book, writtten under the name of Roger Bax, he called his journalist hero Philip Garve. Death Beneath Jerusalem was published just before the Second World War and it presents Jerusalem at that time in a fascinating light. This is a thriller, pure and simple, but highly readable, and the background is evocative. So much so that it has made me hope that one day, I'll get the chance to visit Jerusalem.