There is a lot going on in this Gold Medal, as a college languages professor decides to run away from marriage with a very rich very beautiful girl and take a job as a chauffeur for a while so he can have time to write. Bad mistake. The family he gets involved with, an older husband, a beautiful young wife, an adopted (and also stunningly beautiful) French daughter, and their son, who isn't too ordinary himself, turn out to have lots of dark secrets and vices. This is about as sordid a pulp story as I have read and must have been more shocking in 1952, when I think it was originally published. The author weaves the sado-masochism into the professor's ironic first person account of his adventures. His narrative style is pretty good and as a professor of languages he likes to use a few obscure words now and then that you will need to look up in a dictionary. (Which is great since I read the book on a Kindle, and the Kindle's excellent built-in dictionary made finding out what Hayward was talking about a breeze.)

The problem with the story, however, is that it just moves along from one event to the next. Despite the torrid goings-on (sex, murder, and various perversity), the novel doesn't really generate much suspense. As events take place, the reader is just about as bewildered as the professor is. The professor also has an annoying habit of acting against his own best judgment and resisting (multiple times) the urge to get away from the crazy family he has become involved with. The author also doesn't help matters by making frequent forward-looking statements such as "He was also answering an invitation to get mixed up in two of the juiciest murders California had ever seen."

All in all, not a bad read if you just concentrate on enjoying the various episodes. ( )