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A review by backpackfullofbooks
The Progress of a Crime: A Fireworks Night Mystery by Julian Symons
challenging
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
“There was something almost pathetic about the defiance with which Gardener said that he did what he wanted. Pathetic because he was a boy so obviously destined to take ideas and wishes secondhand. So plainly one who’s dreams where synthetic distorted echos of something he had seen at a cinema or heard on a long playing record.”
~
A classic crime novel from the 1960s.
This story follows the murder of a man on bonfire night by a gang of teddy boys, the police investigation and the subsequent trial of two of the teenagers. This is interspersed with the personal perspective of a journalist who is there on the night of the murder, reports the story and gets involved in the trial.
This story is essentially about the ways that society of the 1960s fails it’s youth and the corruption and dysfunction within the police and legal systems at that time.
~
This was a interesting one, quite different from the kind of murder mystery I usually read. It was much less focused on who actually committed the murder and much more concerned with the ramifications of the act.
In this way it was much more cynical than a classic murder mystery. There is no real sense of justice being done. The police are violet and brutal, the courts persuadable and the press at best mercenary and at worst actively profiting off of human misery. The teenagers who where involved in the violence seem variably scared and lost and completely cold and unremorseful.
It paints a bleak but very effecting picture.
~
I recommend this book for anyone who enjoys police and justice shows and anyone interested in the 1960s and social commentary of this period.
~
A classic crime novel from the 1960s.
This story follows the murder of a man on bonfire night by a gang of teddy boys, the police investigation and the subsequent trial of two of the teenagers. This is interspersed with the personal perspective of a journalist who is there on the night of the murder, reports the story and gets involved in the trial.
This story is essentially about the ways that society of the 1960s fails it’s youth and the corruption and dysfunction within the police and legal systems at that time.
~
This was a interesting one, quite different from the kind of murder mystery I usually read. It was much less focused on who actually committed the murder and much more concerned with the ramifications of the act.
In this way it was much more cynical than a classic murder mystery. There is no real sense of justice being done. The police are violet and brutal, the courts persuadable and the press at best mercenary and at worst actively profiting off of human misery. The teenagers who where involved in the violence seem variably scared and lost and completely cold and unremorseful.
It paints a bleak but very effecting picture.
~
I recommend this book for anyone who enjoys police and justice shows and anyone interested in the 1960s and social commentary of this period.