Blame the Dead: A Gripping and Stylish Thriller from a Master of the Genre

by Gavin Lyall

'FIRST-RATE THRILLER . . . MAINTAINS ITS PACE LIKE A HITCHCOCK MOVIE' Guardian

‘There was just the one shot, and maybe I heard the thud as it went into his body. Then I was on my face in the roadway, gun held straight in front . . .’

Just one shot on a snowy Sunday in France, but it spoilt James Card’s professional reputation as a bodyguard – as well as leaving him with a body he hardly knew and a pistol he didn’t want to explain.

That was when Card knew the time had come to take a look into the life and times of Martin Fenwick – rich, respected and now deceased man of many parts.

James Card is a man used to action, but now he must unearth the deadly secret that sent his former boss on a collision course with a bullet – or he will be the next target.

BLAME THE DEAD is a gripping and stylish thriller which readers of Ken Follett, Charles Cumming and Alex Gerlis will not want to put down.

Why critics love BLAME THE

‘Superior, tough yet pensive thriller, full of twists and turns . . . It’s got everything’ OBSERVER

‘Lyall at his fleet and fearful best’ CHICAGO TRIBUNE

‘Properly fast-moving and violent, and notable for the shell-game ingenuity with which the author substitutes one villain for another’ THE ATLANTIC

‘Story-telling at its best’ THE TIMES

‘Gavin Lyall is a master of his craft’ SPECTATOR

376 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 25, 2024

About the author

Gavin was born and educated in Birmingham. For two years he served as a RAF pilot before going up to Cambridge, where he edited Varsity, the university newspaper. After working for Picture Post, the Sunday Graphic and the BBC, he began his first novel, The Wrong Side of the Sky, published in 1961. After four years as Air Correspondent to the Sunday Times, he resigned to write books full time. He was married to the well-known journalist Katherine Whitehorn and they lived in London with their children.

Lyall won the British Crime Writers' Association's Silver Dagger award in both 1964 and 1965. In 1966-67 he was Chairman of the British Crime Writers Association. He was not a prolific author, attributing his slow pace to obsession with technical accuracy. According to a British newspaper, “he spent many nights in his kitchen at Primrose Hill, north London, experimenting to see if one could, in fact, cast bullets from lead melted in a saucepan, or whether the muzzle flash of a revolver fired across a saucer of petrol really would ignite a fire”.

He eventually published the results of his research in a series of pamphlets for the Crime Writers' Association in the 1970s. Lyall signed a contract in 1964 by the investments group Booker similar to one they had signed with Ian Fleming. In return for a lump payment of £25,000 and an annual salary, they and Lyall subsequently split his royalties, 51-49.

Up to the publication in 1975 of Judas Country, Lyall's work falls into two groups. The aviation thrillers (The Wrong Side Of The Sky, The Most Dangerous Game, Shooting Script, and Judas Country), and what might be called "Euro-thrillers" revolving around international crime in Europe (Midnight Plus One, Venus With Pistol, and Blame The Dead).

All these books were written in the first person, with a sardonic style reminiscent of the "hard-boiled private-eye" genre. Despite the commercial success of his work, Lyall began to feel that he was falling into a predictable pattern, and abandoned both his earlier genres, and the first-person narrative, for his “Harry Maxim" series of espionage thrillers beginning with The Secret Servant published in 1980. This book, originally developed for a proposed BBC TV Series, featured Major Harry Maxim, an SAS officer assigned as a security adviser to 10 Downing Street, and was followed by three sequels with the same central cast of characters.

In the 1990s Lyall changed literary direction once again, and wrote four semi-historical thrillers about the fledgling British secret service in the years leading up to World War I.

Gavin Lyall died of cancer in 2003.

Reviews

[Tomasz · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are moments of utter brilliance here, Lyall gets playful with his language to the degree I do not recall from his other novels, and Willie is a constant delight. But the plot twists were multiplied beyond what Occam's razor permits, and the ending sank into abject gay-bashing, sad sign of the times. Still, John Templeton Smith could only wish to be able to write half as well.

[Al · Rating 5 out of 5]

Old fashioned thriller - in the Hitchcock/Innes/Buchanan style.

A bit dated but it was written in a different time and, back then, was probably a shocking denouement.