“Filthy” Lewker
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could be sour grapes here! The mountain descriptions are as good as Styles’s
best, in any case.
Number seven, M u rd e r o f a n O w l (1956), back in Wales, reflects the
author’s skill with younger characters. Not children’s fare, it does involve a
junior scout (the “owl” of the title). It also mirrors the problems of the times:
post WWII and the concerns of Irish and Welsh nationalism and the fear of
Communism, which date the plot to an extent. Killing off a teenager, however,
lends an interesting twist, a fate not usually found except in juvenile sheer films.
Next in the series is The I ce A x e M u rd ers (1958): the characters are
sequestered high on Mount Blanc in a little refuge cabin snowed in by a fierce
storm. Our hero is at his best, solving the murder 15,000 feet in thin air.
S w in g Aw a y , C lim b e r (1959) brings Lewker back to Wales, and H o lid a y
w ith M u r d e r (1960) soon after is the M u r d e r Sh e W ro te-type story, the intended
relaxing vacation in Majorca churning up another corpse. Any mountains in
Majorca simply aren’t peak-size, but there is a steep rock wall that almost
finishes off our detective (luckily not quite). Otherwise, the tone is more
Mediterranean travelogue, and the murder involves hyoscyamine tablets versus
the expected ice axe, cut rope, or a shove from behind.
D e a th F in d s a F oo t h o l d (1961) returns to Snowdonia, with nationalistic
problems featured once again, but let us get on to L e w k e r in Nom>ay (1963),
perhaps the least convincing of the series. This one deals with politics again,
mixed up with that old chestnut: a villain plotting to destroy or conquer the
world—in this case, at least half of Europe. Sax Rohmer did it best, with his
long series of “Yellow Peril” novels, putting the stalwart British Neyland Smith
against the incredibly evil Dr. Fu Manchu. Sapper’s Bulldog Drummond
employed the genre much more skillfully, as well. And we all know the ongoing
movie chronicle with James Bond, 007, each episode ending with the
cataclysmic destruction of the antagonist’s stronghold, followed by an idyllic
scene where Bond and his nymphet of the day, cozily sequestered from the
prying world, drink and smooch on some desert isle, or the like.
But 007 is bigger than life, not to be taken too seriously. Lewker’s Norway
adventure is meant to be the real stuff. Think Agatha Christie’s The B ig F o u r
(1927), equally atypical territory for her, Poirot’s opponents plotting world
domination through murder and worse. Douglas Thomson, M a s te r s o f M ystery>
(207), claims Christie intended her story as a burlesque. (I’m not so sure, but in
any event, Christie and Poirot lost their way venturing into such entangled
groves.) World domination thrillers aren’t Styles’s forte either. He simply isn’t
very convincing.
D e a th o f a W eird y (1965—we would say “weirdo”), brings in postmodern
remarks, such as “it creates a mimesis of a dichotomy,” or “if you are sexually
inverted like . . . ” (11). Though they spring from the mouth of a far-out literary
wannabe, they’re too much for Lewker. Carr is obviously parodying a literary
type.