Doctors Also Die is the rather melodramatic title of D.M. Devine's second novel, originally published in 1962. I don't think it ever appeared in paperback in Britain and it's a hard to find book - I was lucky to be lent a copy by a friend. Here, Devine was tackling the notorious 'second book hurdle' after the success of My Brother's Killer, and in my opinion he surmounted that hurdle pretty well.
As so often with Devine, the story is set among Scotland's professional classes. He understood the bourgeois mindset of his characters, and his story casts interesting light on the social attitudes of the time (pre-Beatles) when there was a good deal of prudishness about and any gay man was extremely vulnerable to blackmail, as well as to criminal prosecution.
The story is narrated by Alan Turner, a G.P. whose senior partner, Henderson, died recently in rather suspicious circumstances. The official verdict was accidental death, but Alan makes clear in the very first paragraph of the novel that he sensed Henderson was murdered, though he didn't want to believe it, because he knew whodunit. Immediately, we make the assumption that he is wrong - otherwise, where would the mystery be? But even at this stage of his career, Devine was adept at plotting, and you can't take anything for granted with his storylines.
Some of the key events of the story are revealed in flashback scenes and Devine handles this sometimes cumbersome device fairly well. I did wonder why he didn't 'begin at the beginning' with a description, say, of the discovery of Henderson's body. When all is finally revealed, however, it becomes clear that he has misled us - rather cleverly, I think - about a crucial element of the storyline. This is so neatly done that one can forgive him for making Alan a rather cussed individual who is sometimes a fool to himself and therefore not always the easiest with whom to empathise. Not top-notch Devine, perhaps, but a very good mystery nonetheless.
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