Meet Sidney Griff - a criminologist and from what I can find, one of the main characters that Gardner never wrote a second book about.

The novel is weaker than most of the series novels that Gardner wrote - it is also too convoluted in places to be plausible. In a lot of ways it is another novel set in its time (it is a 1934 novel) and it is from the days when the author was still looking for his style. It is an experiment in using different viewpoints and as such is more a curiosity than anything else.

It all starts with a guy who decides to drive after having a couple of cocktails. Noone dies in the fender bender that this causes but identities get a bit confused and before we know it, a few bodies show up (and you will be well served keeping all bodies in mind). Add a few real women, a sordid past, a newspaper (the people from the newspaper are as much main characters as Griff is) and a lot of legwork.

I am glad that Gardner decided not to pursue more novels about Griff or the newspaper (shades of it can be seen in his D.A. sequence - although the names of the newspapers are reversed there). If you had read everything else he had written already, this novel works in a way. But it has a lot of weak spots - including people not seeing what is under their noses and making mental jumps that are a bit too forced. And the writing is too wordy - so very different from his usual style. And I am trying to put my finger on what novel it reminds me of - it almost reads like a pastiche for some of the other detectives that are in the stories of the time. Or maybe I cannot figure it out because it is a mix between different styles and detectives. ( )