Alec Marsh's novel - the first in a possible series featuring Frank Champion, an invalided out Great War soldier - is the author's best so far. We first meet Frank on the dried-out waterfront at Wivenhoe - on the Essex coast - where the boats lay askew, their masts and idle rigging a confused bird's nest against the cold white sky. Unloading his meagre catch from his boat, the Nancy, he makes his way to the wall of heat and the drum roll of male voices in the local inn, the Rose and Crown. Catching sight of himself in a broken mirror on the wall, he sees the weary, cold eyes of a stranger staring back. I took another slug of the whisky and felt better...my beard was a disgrace - like the hedge of an abandoned house, and dark fish blood streaked my cheeks. When you add the missing lobe of his scarred left ear and the angry cut on his cheek, then clearly Champion has been in the wars, and 'Downbeat' hardly describes the start of the tale!
Then, an old acquaintance from East Africa, Nathanial Kennedy, appears as Champion makes his way back to the waterfront. It's not good news. Kennedy, now sporting three pips on his army uniform, has a mission - to persuade Champion to return to France. "A young woman was murdered in Béthune last Monday. She was a prostitute. Her body was left in the bandstand in the town's main park. Her throat had been cut...She was twenty." She had worked in the Blue Lamp (the unofficial name given to the brothel for British Army officers; the Red Lamp was frequented by 'other ranks'), so, by implication, it was a British Army officer who was responsible for her murder. Although the last thing Champion wanted to do was return to France, he caves in: "All right. I'll do it."
Thus begins a convoluted tale of sexual depravity and skulduggery in high places, sustained by a cast of well-drawn characters, a vibrant sense of time and place which makes it plain that the author has done considerable research on the milieu of Great War of 1916. He has read Alan Clark's The Donkeys, Robert Graves's Goodbye to All That and Lyn Macdonald's 1915: The Death of Innocence, amongst other captivating source material and has successfully immersed himself in the cataclysmic events of the period. The use of the first person singular - which sometimes inhibits the breadth of the canvas - is here particularly effective, as it ensures the sense of immediacy throughout. We see and feel each unveiling of the tale through Champion's eyes.
We meet, with Champion, Madame Lefebvre, proprietress of the Blue Lamp, whose slight overbite gave the impression that she was endeavouring to retain a large boiled sweet in her mouth; Monsieur Chambord, the shady local Mayor of Béthune, who brought the fragrant smell of roasted meat with him, and whose eyes behind the wire spectacles were far from genial; the harassed Police Inspector Catouillart, whose face was dominated by a broad dark moustache that concluded with points like the curved talons of a bird of prey. The chin was lost to a vast waxed tuft, streaked with white, which could also be seen in the long hair that was swept back from the thick, chalky face. This hard-featured Velazquez conquistador... Excellent!; the Eagle, proprietor of the Red Lamp and whose head was tattooed with an image that changed its attitude constantly as the man ate and the sides of his scalp swelled and contracted with his robust mastication.; Bernard Robecq, owner of the Blue Lamp and a thorough-going bastardo; the French General, a Chevalier of the Order of the Legion of Honour, Maximilian Troyon and the English General Risborough also have major parts to play in the unwrapping of the mystery. More I cannot divulge; suffice it to say that all the characters are believable.
Before Champion has got to grips with the first death, another prostitute, who he has recently talked to, is murdered; a butcher's wife has been aptly slaughtered with a meat cleaver and her British army officer lover, Captain R. Bradbury, seemingly committed suicide. Meanwhile, another prostitute is missing, apart from her arm, recognisable due to a chopped off finger! Very mucky. Champion's pursuit of the truth sees him travel to the very Front (in fact, a return to the horrors from which he had barely escaped with his life the previous year). The chapter dealing with this contains some of the best writing in the novel.
Champion, to his utmost credit, keeps going in pursuit of the truth, which leads to at least one surprise for this reader. Alec Marsh keeps a tight hold on the narrative and on his characters throughout; his writing is taut but free flowing. He does like his similes!
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