Mitchell Tobin, the disgraced ex-cop of Tucker Coe's Wax Apple and A Jade in Aries, is again at the centre of this most original thriller; once more he becomes entangled in the affair which, years ago, had brought about his disgrace. He was sacked from the New York police force because, when he should have been on duty, he was in the arms of another man's wife, and as a result his partner and friend had been killed. Ever since, his feelings of guilt and shame have kept him at a standstill, in spite of the loyal backing of his wife Kate. He takes odd jobs here and there, and currently he is a night guard at a Manhattan museum. One night his ex-mistress, Linda Campbell, enters his life again, to beg him to help her husband: a gang of crooks are putting pressure on him to join them. Mitch agrees, and he phones an old friend on the police force to “lean on” the gang. That same night he comes upon the naked body of a strangled man in the museum. The murder cannot have any connection with Linda's visit, Mitch Tobin decides, so he lies to the detectives on the case—for Linda's sake, and Kate's, and his own. But in consequence he finds himself equally at odds with crooks and police. “A crime novel with several differences... Altogether, an out-of-the-way affair, excellently presented”; that is what one reviewer, Kenneth Hopkins, said of Wax Apple, and it applies equally to Tucker Coe's new book. So does Iain Crichton Smith's comment that “the strange atmosphere, the confused mind of the ex-policeman, are created beautifully in a claustrophobic book”; and Edmund Crispin's “very good... praiseworthy for its unforced originality in characters and scene”. And the scene this time—the museum—is fascinating. Printed in Great Britain by Lowe and Brydone (Printers) Ltd, Thetford, Norfolk.

Tucker Coe

DON'T LIE TO ME