Leonard Gribble (1908–1985)

This book has a unique cast of characters: the actual 1939 Arsenal football team. Strangely, though, I kept forgetting it was 1939. The story gave off more late 1960s / early 1970s vibes, but that could be because the 8th season of Endeavour features a football team in its first episode, and it’s set in 1971. I had forgotten about the person who ended up being the murderer, so it was something I didn’t guess, but it felt a bit left-field to me.

Slade feels a bit like the sort of solid, methodical police inspector you see in a lot of British Library Crime Classic mysteries, such as Inspector French or Shelley or Meredith. So if you like these sorts of solidly reliable police inspectors for your detecting needs, then you might like this book.… (mer)

This is a capable mystery with a unique setting --the actual real-life stadium at the time of the real Arsenal professional soccer club, at the time (1939) one of the top British professional soccer teams. The real manager and players are characters, though after the opening they play only minor roles. The opening is a soccer match between Arsenal and an imaginary top amateur soccer club, the Trojans, quite vividly and (as far as I can judge, not being a serious soccer fan), realistically described, and quite competitive until one of the best Trojan players, Doyce, suddenly collapses on the field and dies. His death turns out to be murder and is investigated by Gribble's usual series detective Inspector Slade. Investigation finds that Doyce (like many later athletic stars) , used his playing skills to seduce female admirers, often in a quite unscrupulous predatory way, which provides the motive for the murder. Doyce is such a nasty piece of work that the reader ends up quite sympathetic to the murderer, who certainly had serious provocation.… (mer)