Just for once, I’m not going to write a blurb, as the one of the back of the book speaks for itself…

“The duel a l’outrance between Gideon Hazel, mountaineer-poet, and Knut Asbiorn, guardian of the strange secret of Hammer Island, ranges from a ‘pot-hole’ in Derbyshire to a death-trap in Commercial Road and reaches its climax among the crystal fjords and peaks of Norway. Blade meets blade in a real rapier-duel before all is done, and there is seafaring and mountaineering in plenty.

Defeat might have meant another world conflict. But aided by that stout Shakespearean actor Mr. Abercrombie Lewker and the lovely American Althea Vanritter the indomitable Poet wins his last and fiercest battle.

Remember the swashbuckling partnership of ‘Filthy’ Lewker and the Poet in Traitor’s Mountain and Kidnap Castle? This is their third and most picturesque adventure. It is packed with that inimitable mixture of romance and humour, poetry and peril which readers of Showell Styles’ ‘thrillers with a difference’ expect – and get.”

Ah, the curse of the completionist. After all, who would really read Passenger To Frankfurt or Postern Of Fate on their own merits? Weirdly, for the escapades of Sir Abercrombie Lewker, mountaineer, actor-manager and sleuth to be complete, not only does one have to try and locate the fifteen detective novels written under the pseudonym Glyn Carr – they’re available, but you’ll have to usually pay a lot for them – but also find the completely unavailable trilogy of books written under the author’s real name, Showell Styles. And then read them, as they’re… not as good, shall we say?

These are basically wartime and post-war spy thrillers featuring primarily Gideon Hazel, a red-headed master-spy and his sidekick Sir Abercrombie “Filthy” Lewker who seems to be cursed with the need to climb mountains to resolve any sticky situations he comes across. Lewker is missing for chunks of this one, as in the first book, but this isn’t his series – that’s to come in his next appearance.

To be honest, this starts well but it’s when Lewker crops up that things go, well, downhill. The opening sections with people trying to kill Hazel for complicated reasons is really thrilling. Right, let me explain. Althea is undercover romancing the villainous Asbiorn but when he announces their engagement, she sends Hazel (who she fell for in the last book) a telegram saying that it’s all a fake, which Asbiorn intercepts and then decides to have Hazel killed for very little reason… Got that? Well, when Hazel gets to the bottom of things, he goes along with Lewker’s tour of Norway to hunt down Asbiorn and find Althea.

Once they get to Norway, any real surprises stop – there is a pretty good one early on. To the surprise of nobody, Asbiorn ends up being a Nazi with some nebulous plan, and it ends with a swordfight on a sinking ship. To be frank, I got pretty bored with all the running around in the second half. One henchman character is quite fun, if only because of his repeated use of the word “floppin'” in lieu of swearing – one “highlight” is accusing someone of being a “floppin’ weasel-gutted son of a Chinese slut!” How charming…

One day, it would be great if the Lewker books were republished – but it would be very interesting to see if they bothered with this one and the other two…

[NB For info: gadection.com lists a fourth Styles thriller, Dark Hazard, implying that it is a Lewker title. When I was reading this one in the Bodleian today, I checked that one too, and he’s not in it.]