Gideon's Vote

Gideon #10

by J.J. Marric

Here Creasey-Marric studies a British general-election campaign, fascinating in its similarities and contrasts to our own, and examines especially its police aspects -- the protection of candidates (from burglars among other things), the dangerous activities of extremists of right and left (which go so far as the theft of an atomic device) -- and the regular police problems, which persist no matter what the electoral situation.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Procedural, Crime

243 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

A pseudonym used by John Creasey.

The Gideon series was continued after Creasey's death by William Vivian Butler.

Reviews

[David Chess]

Fun. Good solid realistic (or realistic-feeling) story of real people and police work and the bad guys being foiled by both good policing and the general decency and good sense of the common Englishman. Also takes place in a world where if you have an unmarried young woman who is pregnant and deathly afraid her father will find out, of COURSE the right thing to do is to have a local policeman tell her father about it and bring the father to get her; what could go wrong?

If only the world were really so simple and benign, there would be nothing in the least problematic about this comforting little book.

[Joy]

The government has fallen, and an election is scheduled for the day after Guy Fawkes Day. As if that weren't inflammatory enough, the major conflict between parties is the Ban the Bomb party and the paramilitary Q Men, who would like to make their leader dictator. Violence is soon the major lead-up to polling day. It's up to Gideon not to jump to conclusions. Any error he makes could lead to international disaster. Suspenseful.

[Michael P.]

There is crime afoot at election time. Another fine volume in John Creasey's series about Commander Giedon of Scotland Yard.

[Nora Blue]

John Creasey writes another winner in his Commander Gideon series

[Meri McCoy-Thompson]

Enjoyable British police procedural from 1964. Easy to see this series as a precedent for all the TV procedurals that followed in the last 50 years.

[C. John Kerry]

Besides the usual crimes Gideon is faced with an election campaign to deal with. Two groups are especially of concern. One is a ban the bomb group called Fight for Peace and the other a right wing group known as the Q-Men, named for their leader Roland Quatrain.
While someone is targeting the Q-Men candidates the FFP, or at least some of its members, are planning a major demonstration. Meanwhile one candidate has to decide if using some old information about one of his opponents is the proper thing to do.
One other major case involves a chap passing himself as a doctor and taking temporary positions replacing doctors going on holiday. He has been doing this for some time now and the police are waiting for him to make the mistake that will allow them to catch him.
Finally as a nice bit of continuity Ray Cox who was the Deputy Commander of Uniform in Gideon’s March appears at the end of this book as that division’s commander.
This was among my favourite books in this series. Possibly that is because politics has always interested me. For whatever reason I highly recommend this one.

[George]

#10 in the Commander Gideon of New Scotland Yard mystery series. Set in 1960's London and focuses upon a plot to to disrupt the upcoming British National elections with various actions and plots.

[Margareth8537]

Another reasonable Gideon story. He likes to show all aspects of police life

[Delores Alger]

creasey's gideon