The latest in the DCI Frank Merlin series from Mark Ellis, following Merlin At War, Death In The Water (renamed as Princes Gate) and Stalin’s Gold, and A Death In Mayfair, Death Of An Officer is a captivating historical novel.
The 5th book in the series, it starts off strong and hits the ground running. We’re thrown into the action with Merlin and his team visiting the flat of an Indian doctor who’s been battered to death.
The supposedly squeeky clean doctor is quickly seen to be anything but. He’s connected to a real life Indian libertarian who joined forces with fascists to try and free his home land. The incredible attention to detail and combination of real life events and characters with fictional plots is what brings me back to the Frank Merlin novels time and again.
In the meantime, Merlin and his already overworked team are given another case to solve. This time it’s an unnamed body found dumped in the wreckage of a bombed out building. The murdered man was clearly not part of the bombing and was killed elsewhere.
As Merlin and his Detectives get to grips with the cases, while also adjusting to a new working pecking order after the death of their colleague Sam Bridges in the last novel, disaster strikes.
With investigations pushing the team towards a roving gay brothel and showing a connection between both cases, things become personal and Merlin is forced to deal with a direct threat to his families safety.
Not to give the plot away, but this part of the novel is masterfully done. Ellis is an expert in suspense, and he ratchets up the tension spectacularly. Because his characters are so rich and engaging, you can’t help but feel for them.
Like his previous novels, there are a lot of characters in this latest offering from Ellis. Because of his excellent dialogue and skill with exposition, you’ll soon get to grips with them, even if you’re an idiot like me with a dreadful memory for names!
The dialogue is so authentic and compelling that it takes you straight to London and the melting pot that is the big smoke. I also love the characterisation and skillful representation of many wartime staples and customs, like rationing. It really transports you, and that’s a rare skill in these days.
I have two minor gripes about this otherwise enticing thriller. One is that the views of most of the characters are very out of line with the times. The novel centres around homosexuality, with the two inital victims being gay men.
Everyone has very 2020s attitudes, and no one seems very interested, despite the fact that homosexuality was illegal during the 1940s, when the book is set. That can be a little disconcerting, especially since the rest of the writing is so well done that you feel transported back to the 1940s. The Indian doctor’s life is also surprisingly free of prejudice, despite his ethnicity and the attitudes of the time.
I do understand that in the age of cancel culture and book banning, it can be scary to use old fashioned views, but a brief disclaimer at the start would’ve solved that, and the books are highly authentic in other aspects so it would make sense. I’m not condoning homophoia or rascism- far from it- but I think showing the ignorance of the times and natural attitudes in a society that literally criminalised homosexuality would avoid the weird disconnection I ended up feeling when reading 1940s characters thinking nothing of homosexuality.
My second issue is that the aforementioned personal incident involving Frank Merlin, once it is resolved (again not giving anything away) is simply forgotten. The crime against him is rather important, and no one seems to give it a second thought as the characters carry on with their crime solving.
It does show Ellis’s commitment to the crime genre and his dedication to getting the cases solved that personal issues for his protagonist are overlooked, but it does rather detract from the otherwise impeccable realism.
Unlike Merlin At War, which was agreeably large, Death Of An Officer has been edited down to a willowy paperback, which is a crying shame. I’ve been waiting many years for this latest installment of the Frank Merlin series, so I was expecting a longer novel that went further into depth.
Still despite my belly-aching, Death Of An Officer is a fine novel and a credit to its author. I’m waiting with baited breath for the next one. And when the inevitable Frank Merlin omnibus comes out, I’m expecting a call to write the introduction!
