Third Party Risk

by Nicolas Bentley

Philip Geiger, overworked author and screenwriter, has one ambition - a lazy holiday with plenty of sunshine and good food: these he hops to find in Sissac, a small village near Marseille. One morning he gets cramp while swimming out to a bathing raft. Saved by another Englishman, he finds himself involved in a course of events increasingly dangerous and increasingly close to death.

Genres: Crime

191 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1953

About the author

Nicolas Clerihew Bentley was an English author and illustrator famous for his humorous cartoon drawings in books and magazines in the 1930s and 1940s.

Bentley was educated at University College School where he left at the age of 17. He then enrolled at Heatherley's School of Fine Art, a prestigious private college, but left after a few months.

Bentley subsequently worked for Shell for three years, but disliked working in advertising. However, in 1930, he got a break when Hilaire Belloc (who was a friend of his father) invited him to illustrate his book 'New Cautionary Tales'. The good critical reception of this book and its illustrations allowed Bentley to go freelance.

During the 1930s Bentley illustrated many books, ranging from J.B. Morton to Damon Runyon. His most famous drawings were to illustrate T.S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, but he illustrated more than 70 books in the course of his career, and traditionally used the byline "Nicolas Bentley drew the pictures".

In October 1934, Bentley married Barbara Hastings, daughter of the Barrister Sir Patrick Hastings.

Reviews

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Competent, formulaic, silly, dated amateur-detective yarn. Passes the time. Main attraction is the datedness.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

For my full review click on the link below:
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...

[Simon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Engaging, and at times very funny, escapist adventure fiction. The voice of the first person narrator was so close to that of Kenneth Horne in his radio adventures that I kept expecting Kenneth Williams to appear and announce "Hello, my name is Julian and this is my friend Sandy". Written in the days when a trip to France was an adventure undertaken only once or twice and then by the daring. The author is better known as an illustrator and is the son of Edmund "Clerihew" Bentley.