Shadow Show

by Pat Flower

Book by Flower, Pat

191 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Patricia Mary Bryson Flower, crime novelist and television playwright, was one of four children of James Bullen, hotel porter, and his wife Jessie Sarah, née Bryson. Pat left Worthing County High School in 1928 when the family emigrated to Australia. In the 1940s she worked as secretary for the New Theatre League in Sydney, writing radio plays and revue sketches in her spare time. She married Cedric Arthur Flower, a painter, on 4 March 1949. While they were in England from 1950 to 1955, she began to write crime novels, the first of which, Wax Flowers for Gloria, appeared in 1958. She published at least one crime novel every two years until 1975, moving from detective stories such as Goodbye Sweet William (1959)—featuring Inspector Swinton, her Australian 'Maigret' character—to psychological thrillers, among them Cobweb (1972), Slyboots (1974) and Crisscross (1976). Some of her books were translated into French and German.

Back in Sydney, Pat Flower worked as an advertising copywriter until 1963 when she began to write full time. By 1961 she was also writing film and television scripts. Her play The Tape Recorder, a Pinteresque piece for an actress and tape recorder, was televised by the Australian Broadcasting Commission in 1966 and produced in colour by the British Broadcasting Corporation in 1967. An adaptation of her novel, Fiends of the Family 1966), for A.B.C. television won an 'Awgie' award in 1969 from the Australian Writers' Guild. In the late1960s some of her television plays were screened in the A.B.C.'s 'Australian Playhouse' series. She also wrote scripts for commercial television. In 1971 the Flowers again visited Europe where Pat gathered further material for her suspense novels. Returning to Sydney in 1972, they took separate flats at Paddington, so that she could concentrate on her writing.

Pat Flower was an amusing companion with a dry wit, but suffered from insomnia and arthritis for many years and was increasingly isolated as her health deteriorated. The two sides of her writing—comedy and horror—reflected aspects of her personality, with her novels becoming progressively darker. On the night of 1/2 September 1977 she died from the effects of poisoning by pentobarbitone, intentionally taken. Her husband survived her.

Scholarly interest in crime writing led to the republication of Vanishing Point (1993) and several critics have championed Flower's later novels as among the best of the genre in Australia.

--condensed from the entry by Susan Lever in the Australian Dictionary of Biography,
http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/flowe...

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Re-reading any of Pat Flower's excellent books is always a very bittersweet experience. Reading SHADOW SHOW even more so, as my edition was published after Flower died, from the effects of pentobarbitone poisoning, taken intentionally, in September 1977.

Patricia Mary Bryson Flower was born in February 1914 in Kent, England. Her family came to New South Wales in 1928, where she lived firstly at Kyogle and then in Sydney. In the 1940's, whilst working as a secretary for the New Theatre League, she wrote sketches and plays in her spare time.

Whilst she was back in England with her second husband, between 1950 and 1955, Flower began to write crime novels, the first of which was published in 1958 - Wax Flowers for Gloria. She went onto publish at least one crime novel every two years until 1975, including Goodbye Sweet William in 1959, featuring her Australian "Maigret" character - Inspector Swinton, and then onto a number of excellent psychological thrillers including Cobweb (1972), Slyboots (1974) and Crisscross (1976).

After returning to Sydney, Flower wrote film and tv scripts, whilst she also worked as an advertising copywriter until she began to write full time in 1963.
For more of her personal story - check out the Biography of Pat Flower at The Australian Dictionary of Biography.

So getting, finally to Shadow Show. You need to read this book with an eye to the period in which it was published. Before mobile phones, computers, and an enormous amount of technology and fast communications, this book might read as a little "mannered" in tone perhaps. But the fundamental elements of a psychological thriller, the slow unmasking of the truth, the increasing tension being felt by central characters, the all too human reactions to both of those elements is done so incredibly well in Flower's thrillers, they are still fantastic books to read - even with the passage of time.

It is never a chore to go back to Pat Flower's books. It's always sad to realise there are so few. Each and every one of my copies are highly treasured, and every time I return, I kick myself for not doing so more often.

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/revie...

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

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