Death Among the Stars

 Death Among the Stars (1968) by Kenneth Giles

Murder runs amok among the newspaper personnel of the Daily Bulletin--beginning with Percy Button who writes the jaunty astrology column. The man may have been a bit stand-offish from his colleagues, but is that really a reason to kill him? Inspector Harry James and Sergeant Honeybody begin investigating and soon discover that Button was dispensing more than zodiac predictions in his column. Button was playing at spies and sprinkled hidden messages relaying information about meeting places among the horoscopes. So...did the good guys discover him and put him away? Or had he gotten too difficult for the bad guys to control and they decided to do away with him before he got caught? But then more members of the Bulletin staff follow Button to an early grave. Is the place riddled with spies? Or is there another motive lurking in the newsroom?

Your guess is as good as mine...and I read the wretched thing. This book was such a slog to get through--tons of Cockney and lower middle class British slang, very little of which was familiar to this Yank who actually prefers her mysteries to be British. I thought I had a fair smattering of British terms under my belt (40 years of British mysteries ought to give me some cred, I would think). But Giles has me flummoxed with this tale. AND James and Honeybody are up to antics in this one that would put Abbot and Costello disguised as Key Stone cops to shame. 

I don't know what came over him in 1968. I've read three others in this series and there's always been a bit of humor and a small smattering of farce to the stories, but nothing like this. Combine the over-the-top comedy routine (which, by the way is not limited to James and Honeybody--everyone from their Chief Superintendent to the newspaper's porter, Bocker, gets in on the act) with the indecipherable slang and I was lost from first page. Do I know who did it? Yes. Do I know why? Not precisely. Do I know why James and Honeybody decided that X was the culprit and not the three other people they'd been considering? Not really.  Would I recommend this as a good British police procedural? Absolutely not. And if you're thinking of trying a Kenneth Giles mystery...give this one a wide berth and see if you can find Death Cracks a Bottle or Death and Mr. Prettyman instead. ★ and I think that's being generous.

First line: "Retrench all outside contribution," Sire Peregrine had snapped almost exactly a year ago before taking his grey Rolls-Royce to the Board of Empire Consolidated Paint.

Last lines: "Sir," said Honeybody to Harry, "there's a pub I know..." The Inspector followed him.

*****************

Deaths = 4 (one strangled; one hit by train; one natural; one stabbed)