Kenneth Giles' crime writing career began in 1965 and ended with his death in 1974, when he was only 52. In that relatively short time, however, he managed to publish a couple of dozen detective novels, all of them appearing under Victor Gollancz's imprint. In addition to books published under his own name, he wrote as Edmund McGirr and Charles Drummond. I know very little about him, other than that he was at one time a journalist and that his early books were admired by such good judges as Anthony Boucher and Edmund Crispin (although Barzun and Taylor, who were impressed by his debut mystery, soon got fed up with him).
I'd never read him until I came across the fifth and final Charles Drummond novel, A Death at the Bar (1972). I managed to snaffle a copy with the splendid inscription: 'For Ted, the model of all my sinister characters, Luv from Ken'. I've no idea who Ted was, but this inscription does give the impression that Giles was a fun character, and there's no doubt that humour is the strength of this particular novel.
The story begins at a brisk clip, ten days into the New Year, with snow falling, when Drummond's protagonist Sergeant Reed is greeted by a barman from the Admiral Byng pub with the news that the landlord, Harry Alwyn, has been murdered - his head has been bashed in. On page two, we're introduced to the pub cleaning lady, who rejoices in the name Mrs Crippen. Already the tone is set.
There are some very funny lines in this book that I really enjoyed. Unfortunately, the prose is cluttered and so is the plot. There are various improbable gangsters and some equally improbable police work. I get the impression that Giles/Drummond wrote quickly, and didn't bother much with editing. There's enough good stuff here for the ingredients to have been blended into a much more satisfactory book, but as it is, things do rather go downhill after that wonderful inscription.
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