Night's Black Agents

John Munroe #1

by David Armstrong

Clifford Benyon, cuckolded landlord of the Belle Vue Hotel, is tortured by his wife's flagrant affair with one of his best customers. Pushed beyond the limits of endurance, he hires a canal boatman to kill his wife's lover and wants nothing more than for his life to be normal again. But once the deed is done it gathers its own deadly momentum, and he finds himself caught up in a situation spiralling out of control...

184 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

David Armstrong was born in Birmingham and now lives in Shropshire. He left secondary school without qualifications but later went on to read English at university in Cardiff. His first novel was short-listed for the Crime Writers' Association Best First Crime Novel and since then his work has continued to receive critical acclaim. Small Vices is his fifth novel.

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A slight but involving crime novel, set in 1930s England, where Birmingham pub-owner, Clifford Benyon, hires Ezra Talbot, a bargeman, to kill his wife’s lover. Talbot does the deed and submerges the body in a canal, but Inspector Hammond slowly unveils meagre clues to try to break both men. The tension as to how it will be resolved, believable characters (particularly the damaged Talbot and the very human inspector), authentic period touches and great descriptions of the desolate life on the barges all appeal

[Ant Koplowitz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stumbled across this in a charity shop and liked the sound of the plot. Straightforward inverted mystery where we get to watch the 'solving' of the case of Thomas Beech's murder at the hands of Ezra Talbot. Not much detection or meaningful exploration of motive on show here; on the whole, I found it frustrating that people just seemed to do things without us being able to understand why. We're in early Ruth Rendell territory here, only Rendell would have fleshed things out, built up the tension, and helped us make sense of the events that led to the outcomes.

© Koplowitz 2023

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kept me guessing until the end.