Anthony Price: The Memory Trap

The Memory Trap by Anthony Price

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I have just finished re-reading Price's David Audley novels in chronological sequence, an entertaining exercise. Some of his phrasing wouldn't pass a modern editor but his dense plotting and storytelling is as good as ever. One thing that does strike me is that with the last two - this and A Prospect of Vengeance - he knew he was coming to the end of the line. 'Vengeance' tidied up the loose ends of Frances Fitzgibbon's life, and perhaps should have been subtitled Yesterday's Ghost. This answers the question, 'Whatever became of Peter Richardson?'

Having sorted out the R&D old guard and passed the baton on to a rising generation, introduced in previous books, he leaves the survivors to fade away knowing they have done their best and kept the monster from the gates for another day. And the monster just might be us.

So, don't expect clearly defined heroes and villains, with trumpets and triumph for the good guys. Audley sees his contemporaries - dangerous old men - come out of retirement one last time and feels his own encroaching mortality. In Price's final words of the series,

'And, whether you were young and beautiful, or old and stupid ... survival was a virtue.'



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