David Stuart Davies, Forests of the Night

Forests of the Night

David Stuart Davies

Dunne, January 2007, $23.95

ISBN 0312360002

In 1939, Johnny Hawke left the London police force to enlist with the military. However, with only a couple of months as a soldier, his military career ended on English soil at Aldershot; during training Sergeant-Major Stock gave Johnny a rifle with an obstruction in the barrel, and when the recruit fired it exploded in his face. He learns from Dr. Moorhouse at Aldershot General that the heat of the explosion destroyed his left eye.

Stunned, as he is discharged from the military, and knowing his previous vocation is no longer available for a freak like Johnny One-Eye, he becomes a private investigator as a means of making a living. He handles boring minor cases until Eric and Freda Palfrey hire him to find their missing twenty-seven year old daughter, Pamela. Hawke soon uncovers the truth about Pamela, that her parents were unaware of; she hid her high class prostitution business from her middle class family. Learning that leads Johnny to realize she was murdered, probably by one of her customers. He begins to investigate the late Pamela's clientele to ascertain just who killed the high price prostitute.

Though the case may seem somewhat minor, especially with WW II in full heat, readers will appreciate the first Johnny Hawke private investigation mystery that brings to life England while the hostilities are in the air and on the continent. Johnny's inquiries enable the audience to obtain a feel for how mostly Londoners were coping during their "finest hour" that seemed so bleak. The whodunit is fun to follow, but takes a back seat to the world of 1940 England.