C.S.
Forester
I
have, obviously, known C.S. Forester for many years as an excellent
story-teller (the Hornblower books are old favourites). I had never come across him previously as a
murder/suspense writer, unless i allow
The Peacemaker (first read about forty years ago, before even Hornblower) to fall into that category; i clearly have to increase my
understanding of his abilities.
This was a delightful, though
horrible too, book, telling the story of a man who murders once to
secure his future and comes to find that he is prepared to see it as
a way of answering many more of his needs than he anticipated.
Indeed, there are few characters in the book whom he would not be
ready to murder should the need arise. Forester's skill is shown as
he makes his protagonist, the murderer, while clearly an unattractive
person, sympathetic to the reader, such that i was almost rooting for
him to succeed, hoping that he'd have just one more successful
killing. When i thought about it, of course, i was horrified; while
immersed in the book, though, clearly Morris had my sympathy.
Undoubtedly a success by my criterion, i had not expected otherwise,
knowing Forester's other work; i shall definitely look for his other
works in the same genre.
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