Out of the Blackout
New York: Dell Publishing Co., Inc., 1986. First Dell printing thus [stated]. Mass market paperback. [4], 182, [6] pages. Cover worn and creased. Some page corners creased. Signed by the author on the title page. Robert Barnard (23 November 1936 – 19 September 2013) was an English crime writer, critic and lecturer. 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 went on to write more than 40 other books and numerous short stories. Barnard said that his favorite crime writer was 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 published two standalone novels and two alternate history books starring Wolfgang Mozart as a detective, he having survived to old age. Derived from a Kirkus review: Barnard now offers a different sort of sleuthing--a man's 25-year quest for the secrets of his own war-orphan past. Simon Cutheridge--his adoptive name--grows up in the village of Yeasdon, having arrived, in 1941, as a five-year-old evacuee from blitzed London. What was Simon's real name? How did he come to join that busload of evacuated children? He can't remember until chance visits to London's Paddington area fill him with deja vu and lead him to childhood haunts. By 1964, when Simon takes a job at the London Zoo, he has tracked down the remnants of his real, Anglo family. Can old Mrs. Simmeter be Simon's grandmother? Can her creepy son Len be his father? Simon uses snooping, sly chat, and library research to fill out his speculations on Simmeter family history. It's not till 1979 that Simon at last understands the ironic secrets of his parentage. This is a crisply effective study in family-skeleton rattling: intriguing, seedily detailed, and rigorously unsentimental. Condition: Good.
Keywords: War Orphan, Simon Cutheridge, London Zoo, Simmeter, Yeasdon, Boarder, Murder, Evacuee, Paddington
ISBN: 0440167612
[Book #75855]
Price: $45.00