Gently with the Ladies: A Format

Chief Superintendent Gently #13

by Alan Hunter

A police man-hunt fails to find the husband of a brutally murdered woman - until he turns up in Gently's office. The hunted man is, in fact, a far-distant relative of Gently and throws himself on the Chief Inspector's mercy. Gently will have none of it and is ready to hand the man over to his colleagues in charge of the investigation, but there are some intriguing elements to the case. The fact that the prime suspect had fled to be with his mistress and then taken to the open sea in a chartered yacht seems hugely incriminating. But the affluent and exotic lifestyle of the victim, whose apartment was designed for erotic pleasure with her lesbian lover, supports the accused man's protestations of innocence.

Genres: Crime, Mystery, Fiction, Detective, Thriller, Ebooks

200 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

Alan Hunter was born at Hoveton, Norfolk and went to school across the River Bure in Wroxham. He left school at 14 and worked on his father's farm near Norwich. He enjoyed dinghy sailing on the Norfolk Broads, wrote natural history notes for the local newspaper, and wrote poetry, some of which was published while he was in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War.

He married, in 1944, Adelaide Cooper, who survives him with their daughter. After the war he managed the antiquarian books department of Charles Cubitt in Norwich. Four years later, in 1950, he established his own bookshop on Maddermarket in the city.

From 1955 until 1998 he published a Gently detective novel nearly every year. He retired to Brundall in Norfolk where he continued his interests in local history, natural history, and sailing

Reviews

[Alan (the Lone Librarian) Teder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gently and the L Word
Review of the Constable Kindle eBook edition (2012) of the Cassell Crime hardcover original (1965).

Gently shook his head.
'I’m from the Central Office. I’m merely advising on the case.’
‘The Central Office! Isn’t that the Yard?’
‘Until they build us new premises*.’
‘But I thought—’
‘We sometimes confer with our colleagues on a case.’
Her brown eyes regarded him challengingly.

Superintendent George Gently is pulled into a case when a distant relative by marriage appears in his office declaring his innocence of his ex-wife's murder. The husband had apparently been on the run when the body was discovered, but he insists he didn't know about the murder until he came back from a cruise. Gently is uncertain of the man's innocence but decides to investigate for the good of his relations.

He discovers the murdered woman was in a relationship with her neighbour, a rather formidable female, and various complications appear to confuse the case further. An emerald necklace has gone missing but is then discovered simply thrown away in the outside trash. Witnesses provide contradictory evidence of the sightings of suspects, including the husband who apparently had an argument with the victim before her demise. Gently uncovers all in the end.

I am continuing to enjoy the crime novels of Alan Hunter, who has been called "England's Simenon," due to his prolific series (46 novels) featuring the George Gently character, similar to Simenon's regular character Inspector Maigret (75 novels).


The dust cover of the original hardcover published by Cassell Crime in 1965. Image sourced from Goodreads.

Footnote
* In this 1965 book, Gently is anticipating the move from the 1890 'New Scotland Yard' to the 1967 'New Scotland Yard' building. In 2016, the headquarters was again moved to its current 'New Scotland Yard' location. The original Scotland Yard name derives from the Metropolitan Police Service having its original headquarters at a location where the Kings of Scotland traditionally stayed in London. Source: Wikipedia.

Trivia and Link
Gently with the Ladies was not adapted for the Inspector George Gently TV series (2007-2017). Very few of the TV episodes are based on the original books and the characters are quite different e.g. Sgt Bacchus does not appear in the books. The timeline for the TV series takes place in the 1960s only, whereas the books cover the period 1955-1999. I haven't read the later books yet, but I suspect Gently does not age according to the real time.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one's a bit different to the previous volumes of this series in that Gently is brought into the case when a relative comes to him begging for aid in proving his innocence of murdering his wife. The trouble is, after hearing his cousin's story and reviewing the evidence, Gently finds that he's pretty sure his relative is guilty. Quite the pretty pickle!

I quite enjoyed this one but I had to dock it a star for (a) its rather dated attitudes to lesbianism and (b) because I found the ending to be a bit of a cop-out, due to a vital piece of information only being revealed to the reader at the last minute via a bit of a parlour trick. I felt slightly conned, to be honest.

[David Highton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thirteenth in the Gently series, published in 1965 and less dated that the earlier books from the Fifties. The first book to be set in London rather than the author’s beloved Norfolk, the book covers the murder of a woman with a broken marriage and who is in a lesbian relationship.

[Paul Allard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reasonably good police procedural about murder and interesting relationships

This is the third Gently that I’ve read and the best so far (not difficult). George Gently investigates a murder when the prime suspect comes to see him, proclaiming his innocence. As the title indicates, nearly all the main characters are women and none of them are particularly trustworthy. The story is short and quite engaging but the plot is slightly more convoluted than necessary.

[Mirhanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely not as good as the others in the series. There is so much misogyny and homophobia in this book, it turned my stomach. Yes this was written in the 60s, but the misogyny was heavy handed even for those days. Bleah.

[ebono Baloo · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of th best if you trust George

You have to trust the author. He knows what he’s doing. Bold to take on this dangerous topic, but it works.
Gently’s restraint, where it belongs, is steadfast.

[Susan Doherty · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first Inspector George Gently book, full of conniving characters. Quite a short book, might read the first in the series, Gently Does it.

[Marina.Downing · Rating 5 out of 5]

As always a good read from start to the end

[ben c · Rating 5 out of 5]

good bedtime read (@ max about 2 pages a day !)....pure fiction of course...

[Tiina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh, this was an interesting story! Interesting characters and an intriguing murder mystery. But there was a lot of dialogue which was hard to read for some reason.

[Damaskcat · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Fazackerly has disappeared and his wife Clytie has been found dead in their apartment. The missing man turns up in Gently’s office one afternoon and reveals he is a distant relation of Gently’s brother-in-law. Gently doesn’t want to get involved in the case but finds himself being drawn in because he is not convinced of the man’s guilt even though the evidence seems to point in that direction.

This is a complex mystery involving some very unpleasant characters. No one is telling the truth and no one is exactly what they seem. It is written in Alan Hunter’s inimitable style and has much more psychological depth than might be expected from crime novels written in the nineteen sixties. Gently himself is always good value with his passion for driving and his quiet thoughtfulness which can turn to anger at times.

I enjoyed this story and read it in the course of one evening because I wanted to know exactly what happened. The characters, unpleasant as they are, are very well drawn and believable. If you like crime novels with added depth and believable motivations but without too much on the page violence then give this series a try. It started with ‘Gently Does It’ but can be read in any order.

[Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

Inspector Gently reluctantly gets involved in the police investigation of the murder of a socialite when it turns out that the suspect, her husband, is a distant relative-by-marriage. And so we meet a whole slew of unpleasant folks, all described with palpable distaste by the author. Some of this may have to do with the fact that the murder victim was as openly gay as a woman could be in the UK in the 1960s. Her lover sprouts psychotwaddle about lesbians being the New Women, her husband is a spineless skirt-chaser living off her money, her half-sister is a nasty piece of work with a taste for theatrics. Then there is the ludicrous story of how the two women recruited a French girl called Albertine from Illiers to serve as their maid and potential playmate - all very heavily Proustian. Even the women's taste in interior design is described with thinly veiled hostility.

The mystery itself was a nice little puzzle centering on who was where when, but overall, the book left a bitter aftertaste.

[Sho · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've seen some of these on TV so I already have a head-picture of how George Gently looks (lovely <3) and the setting (I hadn't realised the books were actually written in the 60s, I thought they were just set in that period).

It's a gentle crime thriller, just the thing for on the train.

I did worry that it seems a bit misogynistic. I will have to try one or two more though, it could have been because of the nature of some of the characters in this that it felt that way.

[Book-a-neer · Rating 2 out of 5]

A good murder mystery though not something that I would be a fan of. I like crime/mystery books but there was something about this book - perhaps the writing style - that didn't really appeal to me. At times it felt that I got "lost" and couldn't really understand what the character was saying. Reminds me a little of Agatha Christie books.

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

George Gently has the interesting task of ensuring a man whom he believes to be guilty is fairly investigates. The ladies in question are generally not interested in men.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good easy read and I didn't guess who had done it :-)

[Eddy George Eden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice book all in all, some cliches here and there, but it did captivate my attencion from start to finish.
I did like the mistery but did not understand why so derivative.