Crime-Book Society paperback edition - 1936?
This is only the second Grierson Dickson novel I have read, the first being Soho Racket (see my Blog of 23rd July 2025). I found the latter rather claustrophobic (sticking very much to the area of its title), but it was tightly controlled and there was a certain narrative drive to it. Gun Business I am not so sure about. It starts well - It was only a few hours before she was murdered that Marie Morgeuil bought the scarlet silk pyjamas in which she died - but it never really lives up to that early promise. We learn very little about her in the next two pages of the Prologue; apart from a predilection for red - very red pyjamas because I am a brunette, we know she is South American, likes expensive Brazilian coffee and (much later in the story) works as a spy for her government - that of San Vallo.
The reader is then quickly introduced to the characters who will figure throughout the book. Victor Lyne, an armaments salesman. He had type of face which appeals more to women than to men - pale, with blue veins showing at the temples, blue eyes half-hidden by dropping lids, small black moustache above sensual lips. It was the sort of face which thrilled thousands of young girls nightly at the cinemas, which had in it something of the weakling, a touch of effeminacy and a trace of the beast. It still appealed to his wife, Lydia, even though their marriage had been a business deal. Victor had invested some of the profits of Flecker-Bastin, the firm of armament dealers he virtually controlled, in providing for Lydia. In return, he had acquired a share of the goodwill of her influential relations. What was the problem? Lydia thought Marie was one of his 'young girls'
Lyne has a secretary, Janet Gale, who works for him at his office in New Oxford Street. She is presently compiling the formidable list of instruments of death which would be shortly on their way to the unhappy republic of San Vallo. The armaments would go not to the latter's government, but to rebels. This was being engineered by a treacherous member of the government, General Floriano Carrenza. Carrenza turns up at the office; Janet is not keen on him, partly because of his hands - brown and claw-like, and disfigured on the back by black hair. Not a typical white man, then. To add to the mix is the fact that a fat American, Berriman Lee, is working on behalf of his armaments company, Diamond Steelworks of Ohio, to steal the armament contract from Lyne. Strangely, Lee is boarding at the very place Janet has her 'digs'. When one adds the German master crook, Eitel - cropped-haired, blond and solemn - who we have already met in the author's Soho Racket; an Italian-American Angelo Miglia; and a little cockney crook Pipey Hanna; we have the full cast of characters, who may or not be involved in Marie's murder.
We meet the famous Superintendent "Cissie" Marlow at his office in New Scotland Yard at the start of Chapter III. He is with his faithful side-kick, Sergeant Brodie, a heavily built, solemn-looking man and a persistent hypochondriac. One of the aspects of the novel that did not catch on for me was the banter that went on between these two. It appeared a trifle forced and eventually grated. They are sent to investigate Marie Morgle's death. Victor Lyne is soon under their forensic microscope; Lydia gets drawn in. Eitel, Angelo and Pipey are clearly working for someone in relation to the armaments deal; Carrenza and Lyne act increasingly suspiciously. One final character, Janet's potential boyfriend, Bryan Daly (who lives at the same lodgings in Mansfield Road) becomes involved. By this time, I thought that the author had lost the narrative thread; seemingly not sure which part of the story to concentrate on. The denouement bordered on the silly. It involved a light aeroplane flying low over London, tracking a carrier pigeon to a deserted house near Ham Common, where a kidnapped boy was held.
Perhaps the problem was that I kept putting the book down - Six Nations Rugby called as well as my regular Saturday morning breakfast group (we model ourselves after The Last of the Summer Wine but call ourselves The First of the Winter Plonk). However, I found it rather 'bitty' anyway. None of the characters really caught on with me; perhaps Janet and Brian were the most sympathetic. There was too much of a Ruritanian aspect to San Vallo; Eitel got away yet again, which was a pity as he is an uninspiring character to read about. If Soho Racket was a B+, then I am afraid this novel was a B-.
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