Deadline

First published in 1957, Deadline by Bill Knox which has just been reissued by Zertex/J D Kirk/Barry Hutchison shows what you can do when you happen to run a small publishing business. When he discovered his first second hand Knox, Barry was so excited, and when he’d been excited enough, he realised he could actually publish these books anew. So that’s what he’s doing. Deadline came in January, and two days ago the second Knox novel – Death Department – hit the world.

Just as the time travelling reader from the past might be a little shocked by the profanities and the violence and the sex in our current crime novels, so the reader travelling back to the 1950s is stunned by how polite they are, how much the police care about crime and about being fair. I was mostly taken aback by how much staff time they have at their disposal, and also how sensibly proactive even quite junior detectives are.

The reader knows from the start who the killer is and why (and I have come to the conclusion that I don’t much like that format of storytelling), and you are left to discover how the police will work out who killed their colleague, and no effort is spared.

It’s fascinating. I came to like, not to mention trust, Thane and Moss, a well functioning duo who will not tolerate a ‘cop killer’ in their midst. This is Glasgow, so not much cosiness among the landladies, wives and demanding girlfriends.

We’re still in the capital punishment era, so you worry that the slightest mistake will mean the end for the wrong suspect. But Thane is not easily fooled, and he is very fair. Did I already mention that?

Anyway, there will be a new title monthly.