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Death's Darkest Face
1991 paperback mystery book published in England-Death's Darkest Face by Julian Symons. Illegitimacy, blackmail, etc.
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
26 people want to read
About the author
Julian Symons
258 books67 followersJulian Gustave Symons is primarily remembered as a master of the art of crime writing. However, in his eighty-two years he produced an enormously varied body of work. Social and military history, biography and criticism were all subjects he touched upon with remarkable success, and he held a distinguished reputation in each field.
His novels were consistently highly individual and expertly crafted, raising him above other crime writers of his day. It is for this that he was awarded various prizes, and, in 1982, named as Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America - an honour accorded to only three other English writers before him: Graham Greene, Eric Ambler and Daphne Du Maurier. He succeeded Agatha Christie as the president of Britain's Detection Club, a position he held from 1976 to 1985, and in 1990 he was awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger from the British Crime Writer.
Symons held a number of positions prior to becoming a full-time writer including secretary to an engineering company and advertising copywriter and executive. It was after the end of World War II that he became a free-lance writer and book reviewer and from 1946 to 1956 he wrote a weekly column entitled "Life, People - and Books" for the Manchester Evening News. During the 1950s he was also a regular contributor to Tribune, a left-wing weekly, serving as its literary editor.
He founded and edited 'Twentieth Century Verse', an important little magazine that flourished from 1937 to 1939 and he introduced many young English poets to the public. He has also published two volumes of his own poetry entitled 'Confusions about X', 1939, and 'The Second Man', 1944.
He wrote hie first detective novel, 'The Immaterial Murder Case', long before it was first published in 1945 and this was followed in 1947 by a rare volume entitled 'A Man Called Jones' that features for the first time Inspector Bland, who also appeared in Bland Beginning.
These novles were followed by a whole host of detective novels and he has also written many short stories that were regularly published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. In additin there are two British paperback collections of his short stories, Murder! Murder! and Francis Quarles Investigates, which were published in 1961 and 1965 resepctively.
His novels were consistently highly individual and expertly crafted, raising him above other crime writers of his day. It is for this that he was awarded various prizes, and, in 1982, named as Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America - an honour accorded to only three other English writers before him: Graham Greene, Eric Ambler and Daphne Du Maurier. He succeeded Agatha Christie as the president of Britain's Detection Club, a position he held from 1976 to 1985, and in 1990 he was awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger from the British Crime Writer.
Symons held a number of positions prior to becoming a full-time writer including secretary to an engineering company and advertising copywriter and executive. It was after the end of World War II that he became a free-lance writer and book reviewer and from 1946 to 1956 he wrote a weekly column entitled "Life, People - and Books" for the Manchester Evening News. During the 1950s he was also a regular contributor to Tribune, a left-wing weekly, serving as its literary editor.
He founded and edited 'Twentieth Century Verse', an important little magazine that flourished from 1937 to 1939 and he introduced many young English poets to the public. He has also published two volumes of his own poetry entitled 'Confusions about X', 1939, and 'The Second Man', 1944.
He wrote hie first detective novel, 'The Immaterial Murder Case', long before it was first published in 1945 and this was followed in 1947 by a rare volume entitled 'A Man Called Jones' that features for the first time Inspector Bland, who also appeared in Bland Beginning.
These novles were followed by a whole host of detective novels and he has also written many short stories that were regularly published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. In additin there are two British paperback collections of his short stories, Murder! Murder! and Francis Quarles Investigates, which were published in 1961 and 1965 resepctively.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 29, 2022
Like most avid readers, I always want to know more about the author of a book I've enjoyed. Julian Symons is a name that few people would recognize today, but he was a successful and prolific writer in his day. Although he also wrote poetry, biographies, literary criticism, and social and military histories, his mysteries were both popular and critically acclaimed. This one is a complicated story and makes it clear why critics called Symons' fiction "social history wrapped up in a novel."
There are no Scotland Yard detectives, just a decades-old unexplained disappearance that leads a middle-aged man to try to find out what really happened. He's motivated not by concern for the victim (a nasty piece of goods) but by a sense of responsibility to his late father and a desire to learn more about that enigmatic man.
The story is told in flashbacks, but Symons is a skillful writer and he pulls it off without confusing the reader. In the end, it becomes apparent that the three deaths were inevitable. The harsh childhood of the narrator's father and his siblings left a legacy of secrecy and a desperate determination to protect themselves and each other at all costs.
It's also a brilliant and sometimes shocking picture of pre-WWII English society and the role that the class system played in people's lives. The system was permeable and people could and did move from the working class to the middle class, but there was a high price to be paid. Symons himself was born in London, but his father was Russian or Polish and his mother was French or Spanish. Did being an outsider give him an unusually clear and unbiased view of the class system?
This is the kind of mystery that impresses critics who normally dismiss mysteries as unworthy of their attention. It is above all the story of a family whose success has been achieved at great cost. In the end, the narrator is the last surviving member of a family that never managed to leave the past behind.
There are no Scotland Yard detectives, just a decades-old unexplained disappearance that leads a middle-aged man to try to find out what really happened. He's motivated not by concern for the victim (a nasty piece of goods) but by a sense of responsibility to his late father and a desire to learn more about that enigmatic man.
The story is told in flashbacks, but Symons is a skillful writer and he pulls it off without confusing the reader. In the end, it becomes apparent that the three deaths were inevitable. The harsh childhood of the narrator's father and his siblings left a legacy of secrecy and a desperate determination to protect themselves and each other at all costs.
It's also a brilliant and sometimes shocking picture of pre-WWII English society and the role that the class system played in people's lives. The system was permeable and people could and did move from the working class to the middle class, but there was a high price to be paid. Symons himself was born in London, but his father was Russian or Polish and his mother was French or Spanish. Did being an outsider give him an unusually clear and unbiased view of the class system?
This is the kind of mystery that impresses critics who normally dismiss mysteries as unworthy of their attention. It is above all the story of a family whose success has been achieved at great cost. In the end, the narrator is the last surviving member of a family that never managed to leave the past behind.
July 16, 2012
Really good mystery that winds back and forth from the 30s through the 60s, but written in 1990. The main character is an actor who is trying to figured out whether his father killed a blackmailing poet/neighbor while on vacation at the seaside when the actor was 16. After reaching adulthood, the son realizes he knows nothing about his father, and searches out what he thinks are all the pieces of the puzzle. Where it gets very interesting is that the narrator and the main character don't put those pieces together in the same way. Fascinating structure--sounds confusing but isn't. OK, I'll give you "convoluted."
May 28, 2022
One of the blurbs on this book touts it as a 'classic English mystery.' I say bull-slop. This weird conglomerate of fictional 'memoir' and labyrinthine, fog-shrouded some-time mystery is experimental, sometimes interesting, and often repulsive. I've read a lot of true British mysteries--and I mean two hundred or so--and this ain't one. I give it three stars because, yes, it did hold my interest, and showed me how unusual an approach to a murder-tale can be. But then the question that always remains: Do I feel inclined to read anything else Symons has written? And the answer is no, I most certainly do not.
July 12, 2009
Here Symons puts his own detective skills to work, unraveling the tale of a poet's murder in the 1930s, in which his friend's father was implicated but never charged. The friend leaves a half written memoir about the case to Symons when he dies, and Symons cleans it up and does some research himself. The result is just as engaging as any period mystery, made more so by the fact that it's all based in fact. It's a bit slow to start, but quite engaging as it goes along. Not the fast-paced thrillers today's audiences have come to expect, but a finely crafted mystery well worth a read.
June 30, 2011
Multigenerational mystery told in memoir fashion--a story w/in a story--with chronological shifts and numerous characters, this reminds me a little of The Go-Between in that it has an adult narrator trying to make sense of childhood events, plus of course, he witnesses an unforgettable event.
May 19, 2011
Characters you believe are real thinking, feeling and behaving as they would in the atmosphere of 1930s England, a fascinating plot and the whole book beautifully crafted. Julian SYmons is always worth reading. This is one of his best.
May 21, 2015
Atypical of Symons' work -- this one purports to be a true account, a tale of a man uncovering sordid family secrets. One of his last few novels.
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August 2, 2017A portentous – and pretentious – title for this mystery, which is a new genre (at least for me): the “near-novel.” It aspires to being Serious Modern Fiction, but never quite reaches that illustrious level. But it’s no longer just a “British procedural,” either. One theme: how difficult the Sixties were for men in their 60s, unless they were fatuous idealists (or vegetarians). The biggest surprise: a sympathetic hard-bitten transvestite prostitute named Phyl.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews