An Act of Detection by Charlie Cochrane

[Ulysses]

An Act of Detection
By Charlie Cochrane
Published by Williams and Whiting, 2018
Four stars

Two novellas that share a setting and primary characters, “An Act of Detection” is an intriguingly stylized period piece – something with which fans of Cochrane’s Cambridge Dons series will be familiar.

The place is London, the year 1950, and two of Great Britain’s brightest film stars are about to start filming a swashbuckling pirate movie. Alasdair Hamilton and Toby Bowe are under contract to Landseer Pictures, and also among its chief moneymakers. They, working with Fiona Marsden as female lead and romantic interest in their films, give the British audience what it wants and needs to escape the realities of the post-war UK. Princess Elizabeth is married to the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Charles is two years old. George VI and Queen Elizabeth are triumphant symbols of the Crown, in spite of ongoing tight rations and plenty of physical reminders of war.

Among other things, Alasdair and Toby are known for their contemporary take on Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, and in the first half of the book they take on the role of amateur sleuths to track down a missing secretary for a friend. In the second part of the book, as they prepare for a seafaring-themed movie, there’s a murder mystery to help solve.

Cochrane gives us a vivid sense of time and place, capturing the language and attitudes of two handsome young men, both having fought in the war, who are national heartthrobs but in truth only have eyes for each other. Their public image is carefully managed, and they exercise extreme caution in their private lives, living in separate houses and being seen in public with beautiful young women on their arms. They don’t even allow themselves to be photographed together, lest some curious fan begins to get the wrong idea. Cochrane’s story surely has echoes of what was going on in Hollywood at the same time.

The entire book feels spot-on, as Alasdair and Toby gleefully – and competently – pursue their amateur sleuthing. The trouble is, for me, that we learn very little about them beyond the pretty, polished surface of their discreetly shared life together. Because their co-star Fiona is not in on their secret (and, they ponder, might well be puzzled as to why her relationship with Alasdair hasn’t gone further than it has); we know virtually nothing about her other than she’s beautiful and appropriate as the unknowing third wheel. Indeed, in their movies, Toby is the third wheel, because the hero (Alasdair) always gets the girl (Fiona); while in real life Toby is the love of Alasdair’s life. In the course of the two investigations, we do meet a few equally closeted gay men who are sort-of friends. There is, however, no sense at all that Toby and Alasdair have any kind of personal life other than with each other. Everything else is for show, for the studio. It seems very sad, and also oddly flat.

At the very end of the book, Alasdair muses that “If his bed was the only place Toby could be himself, then the world wasn’t that bad.” It is an oddly poignant finale in a very constrained romance. We see nothing of our two golden boys’ love life, other than some kissing and handholding (because even the devoted and discreet valet, Morgan, can only be expected to endure so much). I have a horrible feeling that this represents a reality in 1950 that my generation cast aside simply because we could. Rather than getting the reader caught up in the past with her gay characters, as she did with the Cambridge dons, “An Act of Detection” left me anxious to leave them behind. The genteel playing at being detectives couldn’t distract me from the hard truth of a world where brave, beautiful gay men – even rich ones – had to hide their love from everyone in order to survive.