The Thing Itself: The Third Brighton Mystery

Powerful flashback scenes carry Guttridge’s third Brighton crime novel (after 2011’s The Last King of Brighton). The horror of a prologue, in which an unnamed narrator in 1934 matter-of-factly recounts murdering his mistress, turns to pathos as the killer recalls his experiences in the trenches of WWI. The present finds series protagonist Bob Watts, recently relieved of his duties as chief constable, reviewing papers left behind by his late father, famed thriller writer Victor Temple, concerning the notorious real-life Brighton Trunk Murders. Temple’s theory about the gruesome 1930s-era dismemberments, which may reveal the identity of the opening section’s narrator, also involves a fascinating account of the prewar British fascist movement. Meanwhile, Watts’s former colleague, Det. Sgt. Sarah Gilchrist, probes the cause of his dismissal, a botched police raid that left four innocents dead. If these modern-day scenes are less memorable by comparison, Guttridge manages to end on a satisfying note with his concluding revelations about Watts’s family history. (Oct.)