Andrew Garve's The Golden Deed (1960) takes an idea that has long fascinated me, and gives it an interesting twist. The concept is that of a person who does a kindness of some kind for someone else, and then begins to insinuate themself into the life of the beneficiary, sometimes with malign motives, sometimes not. It's an idea that's capable of several variations and Garve offers us a pretty good one.
So good, indeed, that the novel was not only adapted for BBC radio (with that excellent actor Ian Hendry in the lead) and also for American TV in 1962, in the form of an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour called 'House Guest'. Affluent young mum Sally Mellanby, her Scandinavian au pair Kira, and her two young children are lazing on the beach one day when Sally's son gets into difficulties in the water. Sally tries to save him, but is herself at risk of drowning until a strong swimmer called Frank Roscoe comes to the rescue. Sally is, understandably, very grateful. She and her equally good-natured husband invite Roscoe into their home. But then things begin to take a darker turn...
At first, the set-up is reminiscent of something out of Patricia Highsmith, with a focus on psychological suspense, but things change once the Mellanbys meet a couple called the Sherstons. A violent altercation leads to one complication after another as the previously law-abiding Mellanbys find themselves getting into deeper and deeper trouble.
I must say that I felt that the Mellanbys were unbelievably naive and soft-hearted in their attitude towards Roscoe. Gratitude is a good thing, but they seemed to me to overdo it after the red flags began to wave quite wildly. And their reluctance to involve the police seemed like an obvious own goal. There is a clever plot twist, and although I did see it coming quite a long way in advance, the pace (as usual with Garve) doesn't falter. So - by no means his best book, in my opinion, with slightly iffy characterisation, but still a good holiday read.
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