Forgotten Book - The Disappearance aka Echoes of Celandine

When I met Nicholas Royle at the Richmond festival a few weeks ago, it turned out that we had a shared interest in the work of Derek Marlowe, of whom Nick is a great admirer. A couple of days later, Nick kindly sent me a copy of a Marlowe novel I hadn't read; it's the film tie-in Penguin edition of The Disappearance, which was originally published in 1970 under Marlowe's own, more evocative title Echoes of Celandine. 

On the surface, this is a story about one of the most hackneyed thriller plots imaginable: a criminal is lured into undertaking 'one last job' prior to retirement, and mayhem ensues. The criminal in question is a hired killer, an ex-soldier who is ruthlessly efficient in hunting and destroying his prey. But in Marlowe's hands, the familiar material becomes strangely unsettling. Yes, there is pace and there are numerous plot twists. Yes, there is violence and quite a lot of misogyny (there are some scenes that wouldn't be written, or published, today, in my opinion). But this is also a literary novel of considerable merit.

I admire crime novels that are written with ambition by authors who are trying to do something different. And I'm definitely prepared to forgive such writers if what they produce doesn't quite work as well as it might have done. Give me a Sayers novel, however flawed, any day over (say) half a dozen Patricia Wentworth stories about Miss Silver. And Marlowe's ambition is clear. He's writing a study of character and mental disintegration, coupled with a strange, twisted love story. Yes, the book has various failings. But it's never less than intriguing.

Marlowe's writing was distinctive and stylish, if at times somewhat mannered, in A Dandy in Aspic. The same is true of this novel. Jay Mallory, our narrator, has grown weary of killing people (although he is responsible for several deaths in this book) and is obsessed with the need to find his gorgeous but unreliable wife Celandine. That quest drives his actions from start to finish. Along the way, there are some terrific lines, often laced with cynical humour. And a very dark ending.

I haven't seen the film based on the book, which starred Donald Sutherland, but even though I assume it wasn't a great success, I'm interested to see what the film-makers made of such an intriguing scenario.