During a recent visit out West, I had to pack the books that would either enlighten or entertain me through a thousand boring miles. Being a strong Geoffrey Household fan, this book fell into the latter category: entertaining with a touch of fugitive suspense that makes it a classic Household tale.

The book is organized like a legal document, with memorandums and a series of testimonials from witnesses about what took place in Spain over the course of several days, during which a man was found murdered. Of course, nobody would get much excited by a book that’s ” organized like a legal document,” but this is Geoffrey Household we’re talking about—of course it’ll be anything but boring!

There’s seven parts to this tale. Following the “Memorandum of Henry Sequerra,” we’re introduced to the main character in the book, an ethnologist named Dr. Philip Ardower who describes his own testimony of events. In his narrative, he tells of meeting on the beach Olura, a sort of celebrity-in-hiding and a socialite disguised by a red riding hood for fear that the press would see what she’s up to. What she’s up to is meeting with a Mr. Mgwana, a possible love interest, but also the leader of an emerging African nation for whom Olura’s been trying to gain a hearing in Europe. But when Ardower happens upon the couple in a hotel room the very moment they discover the body of a news photographer, he’s wrangled into their conspiracy to hide the body and rescue the couple from political firestorms on two continents. A web of lies ensues, and we eventually hear Olura’s perspective of the same events, as well as from the perspective of the narrator whose intervention in the drama clarifies some things and whose comments helps set the matter in order for the reader.

This style of writing and organization is unique to anything I’ve read before (except maybe a non-fiction book called Paul on Trial, which convincingly postulates that the book of Acts is actually a legal document meant for a court official named Theophilus). I was impressed by its fluidity, which I didn’t at first expect. Reliving the same events through the eyes of two very different participants was actually exciting, and it highlighted the careful energy with which Household plotted this novel. The ending is as unanticipated as the many other minor twists and turns throughout the book, so it was worth finishing, and it fits snuggly in its mystery-suspense genre.

Household isn’t the most quotable author I read, though he does tend to slip in the occasional barb that sticks with me. I really enjoyed for example this line about listening to our lovers (a.k.a. spouse) reminisce about their past in the “Continuation of Ardower’s Narrative”:

Lovers are impatient when one or the other describes being essential to a past which is not shared. The present is so much more important. If we are immortal, how bored we shall all be with each other’s reminiscences for the first few hundred years of eternity!

I bet you Mrs. Household wasn’t pleased with that one!

While this book wasn’t my favorite Household novel, it also wasn’t my least-favorite! It was exciting, mildly romantic, and unique in its delivery. It’s whetted my appetite for another more classic tale like Rogue Male or The Watcher in the Shadows! I may have to slip one of his titles into my Siblings Book Club selections this year!

©2024 E.T

Read More from Geoffrey Household:

• The Third Hour (1937)
• Rogue Male (1939)
• A Rough Shoot (1951)
• Fellow Passenger (1955)
• The Brides of Solomon and Other Stories (1958)
• Watcher in the Shadows (1960)
• Olura (1965)
• Hostage: London (1977)
• The Last Two Hours of Georges Rivac (1978)