Another post-war title from the ever-prolific Walter Tyrer (see my review of The Evil Spell for more about him).

This one must have presented quite a challenge. It`s narrated in the third person, but the stories of various characters and their part in the matter have to be told for the story to develop, though the whole thing had to be done in under 64 pages (post-war austerity measures meant the SBL had been cut in size).

Undaunted, Walter even has time to throw in a reckless motorcycle journey made by one character (not really necessary to the plot) and still finishes within the space allowed.

At one point I did feel that the story might get away from him, but he pulls it all back together nicely.

Blake in this volume is more terse, even combative, than usual - "they are thoroughly contemptible and weak" he snarls about one group of characters "but they don`t hang people for that". In true Tyrer style, he shows a streak of compassion and humour right at the very end (John Hunter also used the same characterisation in his SBL stories).

SBLs were noted for rather casual editing and proof-reading, and this one suffers more than most. I noticed a couple of rather clumsy grammatical errors - unusual for a Tyrer story - and at one point a character`s name changed from Jim to Alf and back again for no apparent reason. I have long suspected that some of the Hunter and Tyrer stories were phoned through rather than posted, and there is evidence of that here - at one point the word `matelot` is represented as `matlow` (!!!) - I guess from that Walter had a Midlands accent, as that is how I would pronounce it too !

The twists in the tale towards the end are genuinely surprising, and, despite a few minor grumbles (the use of incomprehensible - fictitious ? - naval slang at some points is a bit wearing, and towards the end, a group of characters start talking like characters in the `30s schoolboy stories Tyrer used to write, which is frankly ridiculous), I would recommend this a pretty good Tyrer tale, though maybe not his best. ( )