Jack Trevor StoryRecensioni

What a mess... the author entirely gives up towards the end, but he also skips the beginning so i i guess that evens out ;) ?
Touches of 60's surrealism i think but i might be just mistaking extreme confusion for the surreal. Some nice sixties illustrations in my copy ,which i also think might be the only version.


A spie comedy, feels like something Peter Sellers might have starred, except unfilmable due to some of its adult scenes.
As an example of the dark humour we're dealing with here, its implied a secret policeman raped a dog offscreen, stuff like that.

The spie stuff i couldn't follow at all, no idea who was working for who or why, probably intentional but still annoying.
Overall theres really nothing here, some fragments of ideas but nothing else.

I feel a little bad for not liking this more. Its complete chaos a real 'shaggy dog' story as they say and it seems like something you should read at a quick pace but i've been in a bit of a rut lately so it went very slowly.

It is quite funny but there's also some really messed up stuff going on which can be a bit jarring. Also the main character is an author so he's constantly fictionalizing whats happening around him, usually coming up with some idea of whats going on that turns out to be completely wrong, add to that several characters who lie persistently.

After a while it felt like a british Thomas Pynchon novel or at least something like the Big Lebowski . Its quite filmic, which is normally a compliment but in this case it feels like it might actually work better on film than in book form. Although i can't imagine anyone willing to make something with a schoolgirl like in this :P . She was quite a problem for me but don't worry i don't think... it gets.. too creepy, your mileage may vary ;) . She's as uncertain as everything in this book, aged somewhere between 12 and 28.

Given the style of writing, which is almost meta, probably one of those books enjoyed more by other authors than casual readers.

Eh.

Eh.

From THE MOST VALUABLE PRESENT I HAVE EVER BEEN GIVEN Guardian 05.03.11

'...... the book I give away most frequently is probably One Last Mad Embrace, by Jack Trevor Story (Reinkarnation), once the Guardian's favourite and funniest columnist. Although The Trouble with Harry and Live Now, Pay Later are better known (and almost as funny), I believe Embrace to be his masterpiece, skilfully blending the real life of an impoverished movie writer with a hilariously fast-paced plot. It's impossible to tell where autobiography ends and invention begins, but it's safe to say that the more absurd and incredible the anecdote the more likely it is to derive from Story's own life. For some reason, books about lower middle-class or working-class life rarely stay in print, but Story's books have enough enthusiasts to be regularly reprinted and are pictures of an almost forgotten world of the 1950s and 60s.' reviewed by Michael Moorcock

The much-quoted first paragraph of this story finds Blake in reflective mood ;

"There is a sadness which grows from the seeds of remembered happiness; there is a weariness which springs unrequested from the remembered fountains of youth ; there is a nostalgia conjured from faraway places and gone people and moments which have long since ticked into the infinite fog."

The publishers saw it quite differently ;

"His sentimental journey ended in a maelstrom of violence !"

Either way, I`m sorry to say, the book does not really deliver the goods.

Mr Story, as we know, admitted that he often had an good idea for a novel then had to hurriedly turn it into a Blake because an unpaid bill needed his attention and Fleetway were offering ready money. This seems to be a case in point, with the solitary proviso that it`s more a question of having a mediocre idea for a novel.

The first thing that strikes the reader is that the central character is Blake in name only. If Blake embodies the ideal combination of intelligent sleuth and man of action, it is difficult to see him in the effete, over-civilised and slightly dim character who wends his way through the incomprehensible plot.

The action is often ridiculous, and at times I was unclear if it was intended as comedy. The most bizarre example of this is when a hotel housemaid tries to push Blake down a flight of stairs. "You know why !" she replies when he demands an explanation (he doesn`t). They have a short, but none too informative conversation, in which she admits being connected with a man who tried to shoot Blake earlier, then abruptly changes tack and reminds him of the (quite irrelevant) hotel rules. "She was the housemaid again" Blake observes, perceptively.

I persevered, but it never got any better.

There is an interesting bit where a villain tells Blake about a dream he once had, then waxes philosophical ;

"That`s what heaven is, Blakey - and that`s what home is. It`s the place where you belong - good or bad. It`s the place that`s in your bones."

There is a good bit of descriptive writing ;

"Through the window the trees in the orchard were a kaleidoscope of glistening green, topped with pink and white blossoms like a mass wedding. You could smell the grass, the stinging nettles, a million wild herbs and the black, peaty steaming earth ; and you could smell the river. there was a mad concerto of wildly excited bees and birds with a distant cockerel letting rip as sidesman."

These small pleasures don`t really help us much.

For anyone interested in Jack Trevor Story, you can visit www.jacktrevorstory.co.uk , or you might like to read my review of his books Nine O`Clock Shadow and/or Murder in the Sun (elsewhere in my library). If you want to know more about Sexton Blake, you can visit
wwwsextonblake.co.uk, or check out the other Blake-related reviews in my library.

This particular story does no favours to either character or author. Don`t let that deter you from discovering both - but don`t start here !

Two things for the price of one here, a sequel to the same author`s excellent Season of the Skylark, and a few fascinating insights into the lifestyle of 1950`s Britain.

Sally and her young brother Ronny live in a `rooming-house`, their father having died an undisclosed bankrupt. Things are hard as, purely from a sense of decency, Sally uses every spare coin to re-imburse her father`s creditors.

During the school holidays, Ronny tries to help by visiting the site of a factory bombed during the war. Local people use the site as a rubbish-tip and he is often able to salvage scrap metal to sell on - a friendly scrap-metal merchant has shown him how to use a magnet to establish which items are made of iron.

On one particularly eventful trip, he finds something that will change the lives of the rooming-house occupants for ever. Disturbed by a man who seems to be a vagrant, he takes to his heels. A passing policeman intervenes and finds, unnoticed by the fleeing Ronny, a partially decomposed corpse.

The action switches to a seaside setting as Sally and her fellow tenants set about a new life, little knowing they are being sought by a mysterious villain known as The Patron. They are also, naturally, being closely shadowed by Sexton Blake.

Soon we find that three of Sally`s associates are none other than the Magnus family, a trio of geriatric villains first encountered in The Season of the Skylark.

There is a good passage where Mr Magnus (aka Murdoch) reflects on the murderous leanings of one of his daughters -

"Mr Murdoch looked with sorrow at his daughter. He had not visualised this when she was taking her bible-class prize in her pig-tails and gym-slip. Although, now he came to think of it, it was rather odd how the school had got burnt down on the very day she was sent home for cutting up a grass snake."

The portrayal of an English seaside holiday resort is, presumably, a conscious echo of The Season of the Skylark and none the worse for that.

Unlike `Skylark`, which seemed (to me at least) to be a novel that had been turned into a Blake story (JTS often did this when strapped for ready cash), this appears to have been intended as a Blake from the outset.

If I had to compare the two, I`d opt for `Skylark` every time, but this is a worthy successor none the less..

For more on Jack Trevor Story, see www.jacktrevorstory.co.uk

Harry Jukes is a none-too bright teddy boy, more of a danger to himself than a threat to society as we know it. When he gets himself caught up in a murder case , he finds himself facing the hangman`s rope with only his distraught girlfriend and Sexton Blake truly believing in his innocence.

I`ve previously read a bit of JTS (The Season of the Skylark, the Trouble With Harry and the autobiographical short story The Night the Brick Came Through the Window) and my initial reaction to this was that he was writing well within the range of his abilities. As the story develops I revised my opinion upwards.

For sure, JTS wasn`t the only SBL writer who could keep your eyes glued to the page, but some of the writing, while probably not his best, would be beyond the abilities of many of his peers at Amalgamated.

Leaving that aside, the scene where an increasingly disgruntled Blake tries to interview a peculiar tramp is guaranteed to entertain all but the terminally humourless.

Our man candidly admitted that sometimes he had an idea for a novel, then turned it into an SBL short story when pressed for ready cash. I doubt that this was a case in point, it gives the impression it was always meant to be this way.

It`s interesting to see Blake in an unusual role, making enemies of the police as he strives to clear a convicted cop killer. There is a good exchange when a senior officer - a friend of Blakes - tries to influence him ;

"If you haven`t proved your theory before the execution - then you must disprove it. The whole system could come down!"

"Perhaps it should. A man is supposed to be innocent until he`s proved guilty without a shadow of doubt. Well there was a shadow of doubt."

"Only in your mind."

"And now it`s in yours !"

An authentic fifties tale that shakes, rattles and rolls in a suitably gripping fashion.

P.S. Just as a footnote. In one scene Blake and staff are watching vehicles on a motorway at night and see, among other things, "an oxygen truck". What`s an oxygen truck ? I`d like to know.