The Toff and the Deep Blue Sea

Toff #33

by John Creasey

Book by John Creasey

232 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1955

About the author

AKA Gordon Ashe, M E Cooke, Norman Deane, Robert Caine Frazer, Patrick Gill, Michael Halliday, Charles Hogarth, Brian Hope, Colin Hughes, Kyle Hunt, Margaret Lisle, Abel Mann, Peter Manton, J.J. Marric, Richard Martin, Rodney Mattheson, Anthony Morton, Jeremy York, Henry St. John Cooper and Margaret Cooke.

John Creasey (September 17, 1908 - June 9, 1973) was born in Southfields, Surrey, England and died in New Hall, Bodenham, Salisbury Wiltshire, England. He was the seventh of nine children in a working class home. He became an English author of crime thrillers, published in excess of 600 books under 20+ different pseudonyms. He invented many famous characters who would appear in a whole series of novels. Probably the most famous of these is Gideon of Scotland Yard, the basis for the television program Gideon's Way but others include Department Z, Dr. Palfrey, The Toff, Inspector Roger West, and The Baron (which was also made into a television series). In 1962, Creasey won an Edgar Award for Best Novel, from the Mystery Writers of America, for Gideon's Fire, written under the pen name J. J. Marric. And in 1969 he was given the MWA's highest honor, the Grand Master Award.

Reviews

[ShanDizzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

“This is important but secret business,” he went on. “I’m looking for a poor little rich girl who disappeared from her home three months ago. Her parents are frantic, not knowing where she is. She was known to have come to Nice, and to be with a man whose description is very vague. A wealthy man was swindled of a big sum of money, and there was plenty of evidence that this beautiful English blonde helped to make a fool of him. Her parents don’t want to believe it, but it’s true. That’s the last that was heard of her. The police were asked to find her, and traced her to the Baccarat, where she sang for a few nights. Then—vanish." The girl was Daphne Robina Myall. She was pretty and she had charm, but she was not really beautiful. There was more character than beauty in her face – one of the things which surprised the Toff, for usually girls who lost their heads and tried to make a fortune or else to find fame in the demi-monde of France were empty-headed floosies, sisters to the original dumb blonde. Daphne Myall was not empty-headed. He had checked everything her parents had told him with many others: with friends, with the headmistress of her expensive and exclusive school, with her dressmakers, her milliner, her hairdresser; and all were agreed that she was no fool. And they said that whatever she wanted she was likely to get. She no more thought of taking no for an answer than she would have thought of entering a vow of silence. Like so many who had filled a pretty head with Stardust, she longed for the fame of the footlights; and someone unknown had promised her that fame here. Now she had vanished.

[Ryan S · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Toff shines as he decapacitates Arabs, bangs hot broads, and stabs people while swimming in bodies of water. Alongside his clown best friend (literally a clown) and an entourage of hot, curvy floozies, the Toff is as the Toff does. Creasey does not aim high for the 33rd installment of the Toff series, but he fires hard. As hard as the Toff.

[Delores Alger · Rating 4 out of 5]

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