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John Sutcliffe #2
A Scandal in Belgravia
A moving and suspenseful story of two men, Peter Proctor, a retired British cabinet minister and Timothy Wycliffe, a young aristocrat murdered thirty years ago, offers a penetrating analysis of social decay and society in transition
245 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1991
26 people are currently reading
173 people want to read
About the author
Robert Barnard
202 books89 followersAka Bernard Bastable.
Robert Barnard (born 23 November 1936) was an English crime writer, critic and lecturer.
Born in Essex, Barnard was educated at the Royal Grammar School in Colchester and at Balliol College in Oxford. His first crime novel, A Little Local Murder, was published in 1976. The novel was written while he was a lecturer at University of Tromsø in Norway. He has gone on to write more than 40 other books and numerous short stories.
Barnard has said that his favourite crime writer is Agatha Christie. In 1980 he published a critique of her work titled A Talent to Deceive: An Appreciation of Agatha Christie.
Barnard was awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger in 2003 by the Crime Writers Association for a lifetime of achievement.
Under the pseudonym Bernard Bastable, Robert Barnard has published one standalone novel and three alternate history books starring Wolfgang Mozart as a detective, he having survived to old age.
Barnard lived with his wife Louise in Yorkshire.
Series:
* Perry Trethowan
* Charlie Peace
Robert Barnard (born 23 November 1936) was an English crime writer, critic and lecturer.
Born in Essex, Barnard was educated at the Royal Grammar School in Colchester and at Balliol College in Oxford. His first crime novel, A Little Local Murder, was published in 1976. The novel was written while he was a lecturer at University of Tromsø in Norway. He has gone on to write more than 40 other books and numerous short stories.
Barnard has said that his favourite crime writer is Agatha Christie. In 1980 he published a critique of her work titled A Talent to Deceive: An Appreciation of Agatha Christie.
Barnard was awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger in 2003 by the Crime Writers Association for a lifetime of achievement.
Under the pseudonym Bernard Bastable, Robert Barnard has published one standalone novel and three alternate history books starring Wolfgang Mozart as a detective, he having survived to old age.
Barnard lived with his wife Louise in Yorkshire.
Series:
* Perry Trethowan
* Charlie Peace
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews
August 10, 2017
I'm not sure how to categorize this book but I will settle for "mystery". It is told in the first person by a former UK MP, and wealthy businessman, Peter Proctor, who decides to write his memoirs. When writer's block hits him, he starts thinking about a friend from 30 years ago who was murdered when they both worked in the Foreign Office. Although a culprit was named, he fled the country and the case was dropped by the police. The reason?.....the young man was openly gay in a time when it was a punishable crime. It was assumed that he was killed by a "rent boy" and the government wanted to keep it all low key, especially since the young man's father sat in the House of Lords.
The more Proctor thinks about it, the more he wonders what really happened and so begins his investigation with the help of a retired policeman. What he finds is, to say the least, not at all what everyone was led to believe. This is a very interesting read and the very last page absolutely blew me away. Recommended.
The more Proctor thinks about it, the more he wonders what really happened and so begins his investigation with the help of a retired policeman. What he finds is, to say the least, not at all what everyone was led to believe. This is a very interesting read and the very last page absolutely blew me away. Recommended.
July 19, 2016
I really enjoyed this book. I liked the narrator, Peter Proctor, who writes his story with a dry, self-deprecating wit (unusual for an ex-politician). He comes across as a nice person.
The plot is interesting, delving back in time to when Peter knew Timothy Wycliffe. Peter’s interactions with the people involved with the old crime help him overcome his writing block, but the story he uncovers leads him to re-think his priorities. Maybe Timothy’s story is more interesting than his own.
Possible spoiler:
A five star read for me.
The plot is interesting, delving back in time to when Peter knew Timothy Wycliffe. Peter’s interactions with the people involved with the old crime help him overcome his writing block, but the story he uncovers leads him to re-think his priorities. Maybe Timothy’s story is more interesting than his own.
Possible spoiler:
A five star read for me.
July 1, 2014
Peter Proctor boards Amtrak from Los Angeles to San Diego. In San Diego, he stays at the Ulysses S. Grant Hotel and interviews a witness in a house "with a view out to the intense blue of the Pacific". A Southern California mystery novel, right? Raymond Chandler? Ross Macdonald? Wrong. Robert Barnard's "A Scandal in Belgravia" is as British as they come, with all the British silliness about social class and "having gone to a good enough school". This is a wonderful little book. One of the better mysteries I have ever read.
Peter Proctor is a Tory ex-MP and an ex-cabinet minister, who had been sacked by (presumably) Mrs. Thatcher (she is not mentioned by name even once, as opposed to earlier prime ministers, Mr. Macmillan and Mr. Heath). The time is late 1980s and Mr. Proctor is working on his memoirs. He is obsessed by the unsolved case of Timothy Wycliffe's murder. Timothy, an aristocrat whose grandfather was the Marquess of Redmond, was Peter's best friend who worked with him in the Foreign Office in 1951. We learn that Timothy was a homosexual, and performing homosexual acts was a crime in the UK in 1950s. It is only 63 years from 1951 (the year I was born, by the way), and things have changed so much.
"The Scandal in Belgravia" is such an outstanding mystery that I could not put it away. It is spellbinding but also extremely rich in sociological observations. The issue of class pervades the novel; the middle-classness of Peter and the upper-classness of Timothy are shown with great depth. There is also a wonderful passage on why Wordsworth was wrong in saying "the child is father to the man". And the brief description of Mr. Proctor's short stay in Los Angeles, where he feels "like being part of a nightmare future" is so fitting and funny. This is the best novel by Mr. Barnard out of the six that I have read, and a really good mystery, with a chilling, logical denouement and no idiotic plot twists. Now, I am really looking forward for more Barnard.
Four and a half stars.
Peter Proctor is a Tory ex-MP and an ex-cabinet minister, who had been sacked by (presumably) Mrs. Thatcher (she is not mentioned by name even once, as opposed to earlier prime ministers, Mr. Macmillan and Mr. Heath). The time is late 1980s and Mr. Proctor is working on his memoirs. He is obsessed by the unsolved case of Timothy Wycliffe's murder. Timothy, an aristocrat whose grandfather was the Marquess of Redmond, was Peter's best friend who worked with him in the Foreign Office in 1951. We learn that Timothy was a homosexual, and performing homosexual acts was a crime in the UK in 1950s. It is only 63 years from 1951 (the year I was born, by the way), and things have changed so much.
"The Scandal in Belgravia" is such an outstanding mystery that I could not put it away. It is spellbinding but also extremely rich in sociological observations. The issue of class pervades the novel; the middle-classness of Peter and the upper-classness of Timothy are shown with great depth. There is also a wonderful passage on why Wordsworth was wrong in saying "the child is father to the man". And the brief description of Mr. Proctor's short stay in Los Angeles, where he feels "like being part of a nightmare future" is so fitting and funny. This is the best novel by Mr. Barnard out of the six that I have read, and a really good mystery, with a chilling, logical denouement and no idiotic plot twists. Now, I am really looking forward for more Barnard.
Four and a half stars.
November 27, 2021
Excellent ending!
June 3, 2016
A retired Conservative politician sets out to write his memoirs and finds himself obsessed with the murder of a close friend in the Foreign Office in the early 1950s. His friend was openly gay when that was illegal, but because his father was a Lord, he was protected by the other eccentric landed gentry and the exclusive neighborhood of Belgravia in London. The politician starts to explore the mystery by interviewing his friend's gay lovers and other people who knew him. Everyone loved him. He was smart, funny, generous, and there was no reason for murdering him. Even the man who disappeared the day after his body was found, his latest gay lover, has no motive for bashing his head in. Excellent exploration of English society in the early '50s, with careful and insightful attention to the gay community of that time. There's a surprise ending, and it's not about who murdered the friend. The murderer had personality, opportunity and motive.
September 25, 2019
I enjoy how Robert Barnard's novels so often shed light on events in the past. In this case, it's the death of an openly gay man during a time when Britain had laws making him illegal. An old friend, Peter Proctor, newly retired from the government and thinking about writing his memoirs, begins to reminisce and then wonders why his friend's death wasn't fully investigated. He learns more than he ever wanted to know about how gays were forced to live during that time, and becomes obsessed with learning the truth. What I would call a historical mystery.
November 11, 2021
While the residents of Britain's former colonies may show their contempt for their former colonial rulers in books, plays, memoirs and movies, no one is better at despising the English than the English themselves. The really great English writers are masters at showing how their fellow countrymen and women are despicable. Robert Barnard, in his brilliantly understated style, is one of the best of the English chroniclers of the awfulness of the English.
January 17, 2021
I have the feeling that when this book was first published in 1991 it would have been enjoyed by the people who knew London and British politics in the 1950s. I also find it surprising that in 1991 someone would have written a mystery story that deals so particularly with the way gay men were treated in the 50s. But that is exactly what we have here. At the time of his murder, Timothy Wycliffe was the son of a cabinet minister with a position in the Foreign Office. He was also, for the time, a fairly open and unapologetic homosexual at a time when being gay was illegal. He made no secret of the many young men he brought back to his flat in fashionable Belgravia. He also made friends with another young man in the foreign office, Peter Proctor, who goes on to have a successful career in business and then also in the cabinets of Conservative governments. But now Proctor has been sacked, and as he works on his memoirs, he keeps getting hung up on the fact that Wycliffe was bludgeoned to death in the flat and the killer was never brought to justice. The man believed to have done it fled the county, and police did little to track him down overseas because it would have brought the light the "scandal" in the politically prominent family. So Peter begins to gather all the evidence he can find and hunt down as many of those involved. And this is where the story really becomes a bit of a stretch. It's all a little too easy, and the ending is just exactly what you'd expect from a British murder mystery. Still, it wasn't bad.
June 20, 2021
This is one of Barnard's later works, and one of his best. As always, the author has wrapped a solid murder mystery in insightful and often scathing social commentary, all anchored in a particular moment in British history. Several, in fact. The narrator, a senior politician writing his memoirs in the 1980s, is also trying to solve the brutal murder of a friend in the 1950s. Of course he succeeds, but in the process of his investigation we are treated to a running commentary, sometimes witty, often scathing, on the politics and social milieu of the times, all in Barnard's trademark stylish prose.
The novel itself was written 40 years ago, but the book itself does not feel dated, which I have discovered is something of a rarity.
I liked this a lot when I first read it - and I still do.
The novel itself was written 40 years ago, but the book itself does not feel dated, which I have discovered is something of a rarity.
I liked this a lot when I first read it - and I still do.
March 18, 2015
It's been awhile since I read a book that made me go "D'oh!" as I close the book, and flip madly back through the volume to figure where I missed "it".
An intriguing murder mystery that involves you the reader just as it peaks the interest in the people around the narrator. As I read there was a reoccurring theme, a hypnotic anodyne, that just bugged the heck out of me and it seemed to have a very heavy handed PCness that almost made me want to give up, but I'm glad I didn't because it's all accounted for in the end. I do think the author's device for deception is a little cheap, oh well, if I had spent a bit more time in contemplation I would have been well prepared for the ending.
An intriguing murder mystery that involves you the reader just as it peaks the interest in the people around the narrator. As I read there was a reoccurring theme, a hypnotic anodyne, that just bugged the heck out of me and it seemed to have a very heavy handed PCness that almost made me want to give up, but I'm glad I didn't because it's all accounted for in the end. I do think the author's device for deception is a little cheap, oh well, if I had spent a bit more time in contemplation I would have been well prepared for the ending.
February 15, 2019
#2 in the retired Scotland Yard Superintendent John Sutcliffe mystery series.
This is really a Peter Proctor story with Sutcliffe appearing late in very brief bits and contributing very little.
Young aristocrat and foreign office worker Timothy Wycliffe was beaten to death, 1956, in Belgravia. It is now 30 years later and remains unsolved. Peter Proctor, once a young man on his way up in the diplomatic service then Member of Parliament and cabinet official who was a friend of Wycliff back then, in an effort to relieve the boredom of retirement is attempting to write his own memoirs. Unfortunately, the effort brings back memories of Wycliffe and Peter becomes distracted by these memories and finds he can't accept the simple a solution put forth at the time, so he begins to probe the past. The effort opens a fascinating window for the reader on British society during the 1950s and its changing/unchanging social mores since.
This is really a Peter Proctor story with Sutcliffe appearing late in very brief bits and contributing very little.
Young aristocrat and foreign office worker Timothy Wycliffe was beaten to death, 1956, in Belgravia. It is now 30 years later and remains unsolved. Peter Proctor, once a young man on his way up in the diplomatic service then Member of Parliament and cabinet official who was a friend of Wycliff back then, in an effort to relieve the boredom of retirement is attempting to write his own memoirs. Unfortunately, the effort brings back memories of Wycliffe and Peter becomes distracted by these memories and finds he can't accept the simple a solution put forth at the time, so he begins to probe the past. The effort opens a fascinating window for the reader on British society during the 1950s and its changing/unchanging social mores since.
August 15, 2022
Robert Barnard wrote social commentary disguised as mystery stories. A Scandal in Belgravia is yet another fine example of Barnard's style.
The storyline follows a former British politician who is trying to write his memoirs but finds himself "stuck" when he is trying to write about his years in the Foreign Office in the 1950s. There he met and befriended a quite extraordinary young man from high society who also happened to be gay -- and rather open about that fact. That young man met a violent and early demise for which no one was ever arrested or convicted.
Being gay in 1950s England was not only frowned upon by many in the heterosexual community, it was against the law.
Barnard, through his narrator, the retired politician, Peter Proctor, examines that 1950s era as Proctor seeks to learn the circumstances of his friend's death and, hopefully, to bring the responsible party to justice.
The storyline follows a former British politician who is trying to write his memoirs but finds himself "stuck" when he is trying to write about his years in the Foreign Office in the 1950s. There he met and befriended a quite extraordinary young man from high society who also happened to be gay -- and rather open about that fact. That young man met a violent and early demise for which no one was ever arrested or convicted.
Being gay in 1950s England was not only frowned upon by many in the heterosexual community, it was against the law.
Barnard, through his narrator, the retired politician, Peter Proctor, examines that 1950s era as Proctor seeks to learn the circumstances of his friend's death and, hopefully, to bring the responsible party to justice.
December 18, 2020
This is the fascinating story of the accidental solving of a cold case by a very unexpected detective. Peter Proctor was a UK government minister, and now that he is retired, he's writing his memoirs. But then her gets stuck as he remembers he friend, Timothy Wycliffe, who was tragically murdered thirty-five years ago. Tim was the grandson of a marquess, and worked together with Peter in their early days at the Foreign Office. But Tim was also gay, at a time when it was still illegal. And he wasn't particularly quiet about it. But why was he killed? The prime suspect escaped, so the case never went to trial. Now, Peter is curious about just what really happened that long-ago summer. Absolutely riveting. Fast-paced, with interesting characters, a believable plot, a touch of humor, and a very surprising twist at the end. Highly recommended.
February 3, 2018
This book is very different from many of the author's other works. It seemed that Mr Barnard might have been channeling the late Neville Shute, barring the homosexual theme and a little bit of the language. We have the narrator, an older man, inquiring into an event that took place many years in the past, with many observations about people and institutions, in this case British politics and government, along with a few shots at the American way of life. Vintage Shute.
The kicker in the last sentence turned out to be something of a damp squib. After all, by halfway through the book we cottoned to the fact that Julian was not Proctor's son--what else could he have turned out to be?
September 8, 2017
I expected certain things out of this book that I probably put too much on it.
Also - I suppose if one likes to read John Grisham they will probably like this.
I expected more... scandal in this book than there was, tbf.
Also the fifties just is one of those times that holds such little historical drama I am bored with it.
Also I feel bad because I think the author was trying for something that he didn't quite get there with. Like he was trying to be edgy and daring and it wasn't.
Also fun fact: This is the title of a Sherlock episode.
Make of that what you will.
Also - I suppose if one likes to read John Grisham they will probably like this.
I expected more... scandal in this book than there was, tbf.
Also the fifties just is one of those times that holds such little historical drama I am bored with it.
Also I feel bad because I think the author was trying for something that he didn't quite get there with. Like he was trying to be edgy and daring and it wasn't.
Also fun fact: This is the title of a Sherlock episode.
Make of that what you will.
January 4, 2019
A really remarkable book. Politician Peter Proctor, a former minister who resigned his seat in Parliament after being dismissed, is writing his memoirs. He keeps returning to the murder 35 years before of his close friend Timothy Wycliffe, and unsolved case that, he comes to realize, still haunts him.
Nothing much happens in the book, just Proctor going around talking to various people, but it is absolutely engrossing.
Nothing much happens in the book, just Proctor going around talking to various people, but it is absolutely engrossing.
May 26, 2020
Set in 2 time periods - Suez crisis of 1950s and mid 1980s (book published 1991). Narrator intrigued by unsolved murder 30 years earlier of friend when both working at Foreign Office. Clear picture of life for gay men before legalization of homosexuality, solution of the mystery, and a final twist on the last page.
December 16, 2016
A fine little mystery. Very entertaining. I picked this up because Robert Barnard wrote the introduction to a Josephine Tey novel I recently read, so I figured he must be a well-respected mystery writer who for some reason I had never heard of. I look forward to reading more of his books.
November 10, 2019
An investigation of an old murder leads a retired cabinet minister through British politics of the 1950s when homosexuality was illegal. I didn't see the twist at the end coming. This is best read if you are familiar with modern British prime ministers.
November 7, 2021
Dependable mystery by Barnard.
A 90s look at the gay life in the 1950's England.
Still slightly dated with the term homosexual sound off-key in its constant use.
But a good mystery with a sympathetic hero.
A 90s look at the gay life in the 1950's England.
Still slightly dated with the term homosexual sound off-key in its constant use.
But a good mystery with a sympathetic hero.
January 26, 2023
This is one of those lucky discoveries - I just saw it at the used bookstore and I thought it might hold my attention. Top drawer. Compulsively readable. There is a gotcha moment at the end. Thoroughly enjoyable.
September 2, 2019
Audiobook performed by Frederick Davidson
June 26, 2020
Always a good English read
February 23, 2023
Quite good, although its the form of a mystery, its really a novel about British politics in the fifties. Beautifully written. Definitely want to read more by this author.
July 5, 2013
Scandal In Belgravia reads more like a section of Anthony Powell's Dance than it does your usual mystery novel. Peter Proctor, a recently sacked cabinet minister, is writing his memoirs, but is making no progress because he has been waylaid by memories of the murder of a friend with whom he had worked in the Foreign Office in the 1950s. The aura of the 1950s political world is painted as one with thinly veiled snobbery, corruption, and sexual hypocrisy. Timothy Wycliff was the aristocratic younger son of a younger son; charismatic, generous and gay. He is found battered and with his head stove in right as the Suez Affair was about to blow wide open. The murder was written off as a case of his having been killed by a violent boyfriend, a verdict which is met all the, "they're like that...very unstable people, queers are" sneering you might have expected of the era. Since the Suez Crisis is demanding all of the country's attention, the murder falls through the crack and the case never went to trial since the chief suspect had fled to Spain But might there be more to it?
Excellent development of character and evocation of an era
My edition is a book club 1st edition. Different cover art.
Excellent development of character and evocation of an era
My edition is a book club 1st edition. Different cover art.
June 27, 2012
An ousted MP settles down to write his memoirs only to discover that his extensive political life was actually boring and pointless when he considers the murder of his friend from the Foreign Office days. The murder seemed straightforward, but there was no trial and everyone seems to have forgotten about it. He decides his memoirs can wait until he teases out what actually transpired that night in 1956 when a gentle and infinitely likeable man was beaten to death.
Barnard provides more than a mystery, walking us through the days when homosexuality was illegal in Britain, when a whiff of scandal could bring down a government as well as ruin a politician's career, and in the meantime, Britain and France try a face-off with President Nasser over the Suez Canal.
Barnard is a master storyteller, weaving events from the past with the contemporary in his wry, witty style.
I forgot how much I enjoyed his writing. Must read more.
Barnard provides more than a mystery, walking us through the days when homosexuality was illegal in Britain, when a whiff of scandal could bring down a government as well as ruin a politician's career, and in the meantime, Britain and France try a face-off with President Nasser over the Suez Canal.
Barnard is a master storyteller, weaving events from the past with the contemporary in his wry, witty style.
I forgot how much I enjoyed his writing. Must read more.
October 8, 2009
The last book of Barnard's I read was Death of a Mystery Writer, a glorious near Colin Watson-style comedy. This book is very much more serious -- and in fact I'd claim it as a fairly substantial work of fiction, reminiscent perhaps of John le Carre, perhaps of Somerset Maugham. Retired UK civil servant Peter Proctor decides to investigate the long-ago murder of his friend Timothy Wycliffe, a crime probably covered up because of government embarrassment over Wycliffe's outrageously gay lifestyle. There are lots of good things to say about this excellent book, not least its portrayal of UK politics during British colonialism's last halfwitted hurrah, the Suez Crisis. The book's sole flaw is a stupid twist in the final few lines; forget that and read it for the brilliant rest.
January 3, 2017
A murder takes place in the Belgrave Square of London in the 1950's. The victim is Timothy Wycliffe, a member of the Foreign Service. Early in the story we learn that Wycliffe is a practicing homosexual and son of a politician who held several Ministerial positions in Great Britain. Thirty five years later Wycliffe's friend, Peter Proctor a retired member of Parliament, sets out to find the killer and the truth behind Wycliffe's death.
I enjoyed this book. It was an easy read and very entertaining.
I enjoyed this book. It was an easy read and very entertaining.
September 30, 2024
Was not expecting a whole lot, but turned out to have surprising depth, even if I have mixed feelings about the actual mystery element. Still very fun overall. The historical setting turned out to be one of my favourite things about the story which I wouldn't have expected
Was also surprised by how current the story felt in its treatment of social issues, when I knew beforehand that the author was born in 1936 and the book was published in 1991
Was also surprised by how current the story felt in its treatment of social issues, when I knew beforehand that the author was born in 1936 and the book was published in 1991
Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews