From the new fiction

Press, 21 April 1979, Page 17

From the new fiction

The Folly. By David Anne. W. H. Allen. 168 pp. $9.95. A warning against man’s dabbling in genetic engineering or a morbid attempt to scare readers witless? The motivation for David Anne’s second novel would seem to be apparent in this excerpt from one of the many detailed descriptions of violent death in the book. (The luckless victim is being tom to pieces by meat-eating rat-rabbits) “A few attacked the scientist’s head, the only part of his body still intact. One ripped a chunk from his cheek, taking the eyeball with it. And then the other cheek and eyeball. Webber was blinded and lay quiverirg. . This distasteful tale of an English village that is culled by a band of test-tube rodents, created by a mad scientist (of course) and his boss, who is encrusted with the boils of myxomatosis, makes one echo the thoughts of the young reporter whose parents have been killed by the ratrabbits, and who, predicatbly enough, exposes all: “There is nd horror, he thought, in Nature, worse than Man himself.” Mr Anne’s first novel was “Rabid — Day of the Mad Dogs.” Enough said. — NANCY CAWLEY.

Aristotle Detective. By Margaret Doody. Bodley Head. 288 pp. $11.40.

“If we look at the crime hard enough, we can see the personality of the criminal written upon it,” the great private detective tells the young counsel for the defence in this entertaining story. Professor Doody has combined her interests in ancient history and detective fiction to produce a startling tale of dark deeds in the Athens of 334 B.C. Against the background of Alexander the Great’s conquests in Asia Minor, the philospher Aristotle sets out to help a

former pupil solve a dastardly murder and clear his family’s name. What might have been merely a curiosity of detective fiction turns into an absorbing account of life in Classical Greece at an especially testing time. Aristotle’s logical and categorising approach to detection anticipates the techniques of Sherlock Holmes by more than 2000 years; due regard is given to the intervention of the Gods and Fate in the lives of men; the final trial scene has a vivid tension and a surprising, but satisfying conclusion. “I dislike disorder. But life is often untidy. It is a mistake to expect too much order,” Aristotle warns young Stephanos. For all that, Professor Doody imposes a neat and convincing order on a plot that twists through the alleys of Piraeus and Athens, and reaches Out to the great battle between Greeks and Persians on the banks of the Issus. —NAYLOR HILLARY.

Point of Honour, By Alan Scholefield. Heinemann. 197 pp. $10.40. In the retreat to the beaches at Dunkirk, David Turner’s father won " posthumous Victoria Cross for his defence, with the help of French civilians, of a tiny Normandy village. Forty years later his son can remember nothing of his father except his body being brought back to England for burial, and a fierce argument over the corpse between his mother, an undertaker, and the family doctor. When his father’s Victoria Cross comes up for sale and fetches a suprising price, David Turner sets out to discover how his father really won the highest award for valour. His first, alarming find sets off a long chain of detection, leading back through the wind-swept sand-hills of the northwest coast of France. For Mr Turner senior died from a shotgun blast in the back, an unlikely death for a Victoria Cross winner, and that way the cause of the kitchen argument 1 round the corpse. Those who have enjoyed others of Alan Scholefield? novels, such as “Great Elephant,” wil' know that he can make a moving tale from the theme of a man’s search for his father’s real identity. — NAYLO3 | HILLARY.