London 1976, Belgravia, a group of women are drinking in a crowded pub. A handsome, if short but impeccably dressed man with stunning green eyes makes eye contact with one of them - he winks. He waits a while and then he moves towards the group. The Winking Killer has begun a journey that he has been planning for some time.
Three men, each living with failure of one kind or another are drawn into a maze of intrigue, but who will win the game of ‘catch me if you can’?
Lee Jones is a failed singer songwriter rock star. His group, Picture Show recorded one album, in 1971 and released a couple of singles. But they got nowhere in the charts, and with no hits they quickly vanished from the pop music scene. Lee now lives a life of fantasy and aberration. He has a new venture; Lee will get the fame he deserves.
Charles Underhill is living in Paris with his mother. He is hiding from his past life as a student in Oxford. It seems that now someone knows about that time, as he starts to receive blank postcards from Oxford showing tourist views - this someone could threaten his future.
Howard Miller is in Nice struggling to write his second novel where he meets Charles who is on his regular holiday. Charles offers Howard money to visit Oxford and track-down a man he knew back in his student days. Howard needs the money, so he travels back to England where he becomes entangled with Lee Jones.
Through the cities of London, Oxford, Paris and Nice, the three men play ‘catch me if you can.’ Who will win?
The Winking Killer is a brilliant novel, innovative and original. Andrew Martin holds his reader by a masterful hand. The multifarious characters are well drawn, and the atmosphere of the time is in itself, a character.
The multi-layered plot is at first unhurried, a narrative with impeccable timing that speeds up to the conclusion.
I heartily recommend this thoughtful and very clever book.
