Colin Wilson’s The God of the Labyrinth

Colin Wilson’s The God of the Labyrinth was published in 1971.

Colin Wilson (1931-2013) was one of the most fascinating literary figures of his age. To say that his intellect was wide-ranging would be an understatement. He became a sensation at the age of 24 with his book The Outsider which to a large extent introduced existentialism to the English-speaking world. He wrote on philosophy and on the occult. He wrote crime novels and science fiction.

And he wrote novels like The God of the Labyrinth which are difficult to classify. You could call it an existentialist literary detective story combined with philosophical musings on sex and consciousness.

The first-person narrator is Gerard, a writer who had achieved notoriety with the publication of a scandalous sex diary. Sorme is on a lecture tour in the United States when he is offered a commission by a sleazy publisher to write an introduction to an erotic journal by a moderately obscure Irish rake named Esmond Donnelly. The manuscript Sorme is given is disappointingly brief and with few literary qualities. Sorme had however come across Donnelly’s name is another context a few days earlier. He is a firm believer that coincidences are not coincidences. He feels compelled to accept the commission.

The publisher tells him that he would be delighted if Sorme could find more material. Sorme is convinced that what he means by this is that he wants Sorme to forge the additional material, which Sorme certainly has no intention of doing. Then Sorme discovers that the whole existing manuscript is a forgery. There almost certainly was however a genuine manuscript which may still exist. Tracking down the original manuscript will be an interesting challenge and Sorme is becoming fascinated by Donnelley. In fact he’s becoming obsessed.

Finding the manuscript really does require the skill and patience of a detective. It may be in the hands of Donnelly’s descendants, or in the hands of descendants of various people with whom Donnelly was involved.

Sorme finds a variety of genuine writings by Donnelly, more than enough to justify a book.

The God of the Labyrinth includes copious extracts from Esmond Donnelly’s diaries. Some is mostly interested in the erotic material, not for prurient reasons but for philosophical reasons. Sorme believes that sex can be the key to unlocking elevated states of consciousness and he suspects that Donnelly held similar views. Esmond’s sexual adventures in some ways parallel Sorme’s own. Sorme also sees sexual desire as being driven not by purely physical desire. It’s an attempt to establish some mystic communion with a member of the opposite sex. When a man and a woman have sex it’s much more than a union of two bodies, or at least it can be much more.

We’re often not sure whether we’re getting the opinions of Donnelly or of Sorme or of Wilson. Wilson was certainly interested in ideas similar to those espoused by Donnelly and Sorme.

Sorme finds lots of manuscripts. Some are forgeries, some are not. Some were written by Donnelly and some by others. Donnelly had been associated with some interesting literary figures. Sorme comes to realise that there is more at stake than an erotic diary. Donnelly’s interests ranged well beyond sex, perhaps into more esoteric fields. Sorme keeps coming across references to the Sect of the Phoenix, and even to the Hell Fire Club.

This novel is more than a literary detective story and as it progresses it becomes more and more difficult to be sure exactly what kind of a story this is.

Donnelly becomes an ever more elusive character, and Sorme becomes ever more obsessed.

There’s plenty of sex but it would be misleading to call this an erotic novel. It’s very cerebral and very obscure but it’s always interesting. No-one but Colin Wilson could have written this novel. As a writer he was a one-off and this novel is a one-off. But it is weirdly fascinating and it is highly recommended.

Kingsley Amis's Colonel Sun

Kingsley Amis wrote Colonel Sun (using the name Robert Markham) in 1968. This was the first of the many James Bond continuation novels. I have always avoided these novels because I don’t really approve of other writers carrying on the adventures of characters created by deceased writers. I have however made an exception in the case of Colonel Sun.

Kingsley Amis really was qualified to write a Bond novel. He was not that much younger than Ian Fleming. The world of postwar austerity, of ever-declining British power, of Britain becoming a subservient satellite of the United States, of that vague sense of dissatisfaction that Britain had won the war and was now much worse off than before, the loss of optimism and national self-confidence - these things formed the historical background of Fleming’s Bond novels and they explain much of the character of James Bond and of the novels. Amis was as familiar with this world as was Fleming. He may not have agreed with all of Fleming’s views but he certainly understood where Fleming was coming from, which meant that he understood where Bond was coming from. He knew what made Bond tick.

Amis had written what is still the best non-fiction book on Bond, The Bond Dossier. He understood the Bond novels.

Colonel Sun opens with an attempt to kidnap both M and Bond. Bond escapes. He then realises that the only way to crack the case is to get himself captured. The kidnappers have set an obvious trap for him in Greece but he’ll have to walk right into it.

MI6 have no idea of the identity of those behind this sinister plot. The answer turns out to be rather complicated. The potential for betrayals and double-crosses and misunderstandings and divided loyalties is enormous.

There is a girl of course. A Greek girl named Ariadne. Maybe Bond should not trust her but it soon transpires that he’s fresh out of reliable allies so he’ll have to take a chance on her. Ariadne is very much a Bond Girl, a worthy successor to the Bond girls created by Fleming.

The plot is complex but it feels reasonably Bondian. The only departure from the Bond novels is that suddenly Red China is a major threat, which by 1968 was becoming a standard feature of spy fiction. This is a Cold War thriller, which was not something that Ian Fleming was really into. Fleming felt that too much obsession wth the Cold War would have dated his books and of course he was right. But this is a Cold War thriller with a difference. I can’t explain the difference without revealing spoilers so I won’t.

Colonel Sun himself is a typical Bond villain in some ways, although less colourful than Fleming’s Bond villains. He does have the sadistic tendencies of a Bond villain. Colonel Sun is an enthusiastic disciple of the Marquis de Sade and a believer in de Sade’s philosophies.

Fleming’s interest in sadomasochism has been exaggerated but it was real and Amis puts quite a bit of emphasis on it.

This is a Bond who is still recovering, physically and emotionally, from the traumatic events of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and Amis maintains the continuity from that book. This is also a Bond very much in tune with the Bond of the later Fleming novels and short stories. He’s lost some of his sense of certainty. He has developed a few moral qualms about the job. This is quite consistent with the way Fleming was developing the character in stories like For Your Eyes Only and The Living Daylights. You’ll get a lot more enjoyment out of Colonel Sun if you’re familiar with Fleming’s Bond stories.

There’s some sex, but no more than you get in a Fleming Bond novel. The fact that Bond gets emotionally involved with Ariadne is also perfectly consistent with Fleming’s Bond - Bond is a man who cannot have a sexual relationship with a woman without becoming emotionally entangled.

Amis’s style is close enough to Fleming’s to feel authentically Bondian.

It’s a fine exciting spy thriller tale. Highly recommended.

Edgar Wallace's The Frightened Lady

The Frightened Lady is a 1933 Edgar Wallace thriller.

Fairly typically the setting is a country house in England. Marks Priory is the estate of the young Lord Lebanon but he is definitely not in charge. He is entirely under the thumb of his mother. He doesn’t like it but every attempt at rebellion on his part has failed. Lady Lebanon is a formidable woman. She has intense family pride. An expert in heraldry, she is obsessed by the family’s history. She is not not just a Lebanon by marriage but by birth as well. She married her cousin. It is a very ancient family.

Young Lord Lebanon has other problems, specifically the rather sinister Dr Amersham. The relationship between his mother and Dr Amersham is obscure but it does appear that the doctor has some kind of hold over her. The servants detest Dr Amersham, probably with good reason.

Chief Inspector Bill Tanner of Scotland Yard becomes involved with this ancient family when the chauffeur is murdered. Tanner was in fact more or less on the scene at the time. He was in the village, Marks Thornton, investigating a case of counterfeiting.

There are all kinds of tensions at Marks Priory. The gamekeeper Tillings suspects his wife of being unfaithful, possibly with the chauffeur. There are two hardboiled American footmen which is very strange. One has to wonder how on earth they came to be in the service of such an old and distinguished family. Lord Lebanon has tried to dismiss them but has been overruled by his mother. Lady Lebanon’s secretary Ilsa Crane is terrified but nobody knows why. Every member of the family and every member of the staff seems anxious, unhappy and secretive.

And more murders will follow.

There are secrets here, possibly from the past. There might also be a question of money, the Lebanon family being extremely rich. There are sexual tensions. There are jealousies. There could be all sorts of motives for murder here.

Tanner is an efficient cop with an impressive record. His two off-siders are perhaps less formidable. Detective Sergeant Ferraby is young but very keen. Tanner regards Detective Sergeant Totty as the worst detective he has ever encountered, with a tendency to indulge in fanciful speculation. Totty is however almost a genius when it comes to spotting physical clues.

Ferraby gets himself personally involved when he takes a shine to Ilsa Crane.

There are plenty of suspects in the sense that there are plenty of people here with things to hide. Coming up with a plausible explanation for the crimes is a challenge even for a man as experienced as Bill Tanner, and he is unable to connect all the pieces of the puzzle until the very end. Despite his experience he has made a couple of false assumptions.

Wallace invites the reader to make false assumptions as well. He plays fair with the reader but like any good detective story writer he uses misdirection quite skilfully. He allows us to mislead ourselves.

The construction of Marks Priory began in 1160. It has been modified and extended and rebuilt several times. You won’t be at all surprised to learn that it is suspected that the house may contain secret passageways - this is an Edgar Wallace thriller after all.

This is closer to being a straightforward country house murder mystery than the more outrageous type of thriller for which Wallace was known, although there are a few outrageous touches and a few familiar Wallace trademarks.

The Frightened Lady is fine entertainment and is recommended.

The novel was filmed in 1940 as The Case of the Frightened Lady.

Jay Dratler’s The Pitfall

Jay Dratler’s The Pitfall was published in 1947.

Forbes is a Hollywood screenwriter. He knows this guy called Mac. Mac is a cop. Mac has made Forbes a very strange proposition. Mac busted a punk named Bill Smiley for petty thieving. Smiley is now behind bars but not for long. It was a very minor offence and he’ll be out in six weeks. But Mac has become obsessed by Smiley’s wife Mona. He has only met her briefly but he thinks she’s the most gorgeous most desirable woman he’s ever set eyes on. But she would never consider going to bed with Mac because he’s a cop.

Mac’s proposition is that Forbes should meet Mona, romance her, date her and (presumably) sleep with her. He should then introduce her to Mac and naturally she will then dump Forbes and jump into bed with Mac.

Forbes has three objections to this proposal. Firstly, he’s a happily married man. Secondly, it sounds like a recipe for trouble. Smiley is likely to come after him with murder on his mind. Thirdly, the whole idea makes no sense. It is incoherent, illogical, bizarre and crazy. Forbes is not interested.

On the other hand Forbes’ wife is pregnant at the moment and he’s not getting any bedroom fun. The more he thinks about it the more he decides he wants some bedroom action. And if Mona is as hot as Mac claims then he could definitely get interested. And what could go wrong?

We figure out right away that with Forbes we’re dealing with a classic noir protagonist. He knows the whole situation just has so much potential for disaster, and for several kinds of disaster all rolled up into into one package. He isn’t dumb enough to think it can work out any way but badly. But he goes ahead anyway. He decides not to think about all those disastrous outcomes that are not just possibilities but practically certainties.

He meets Mona, and from that moment on he is lost. She is as gorgeous as Mac claimed. There’s something else about her that drives him crazy. He thinks of her as his tigress. Her body drives him wild. When they go to bed together it’s magic. He is hooked completely. Where Mona is concerned he’s an addict.

Of course he has given no thought to the fact that Bill Smiley’s sentence was a very short one. He has given no thought to what will happen when Bill is released. He hasn’t thought about the fact that Mac is a very dangerous man and he’s a cop as well. Mac expects Forbes to fade out of the picture so that he can have Mona. Cops like Mac do not like being double-crossed. Forbes has also put out of his mind the fact that he has a wife and kid and that he’s not going to be able to walk out on them. All Forbes can think about is Mona, and her perfect body.

Mona to some extent fulfils the femme fatale role in the plot but she’s not a classic femme fatale. OK, she’s a married woman having an affair but she isn’t intending to wreck Forbes’s life. To begin with she doesn’t know Forbes is married. She doesn’t know she’s stealing another woman’s husband.

The one minor problem you might have with this book is accepting the idea that a man like Mac, a tough no-nonsense cop, would come up with that crazy scheme in the first place. It’s a somewhat contrived plot device. If you can accept it that initial premise then everything else in the plot flows smoothly and logically from there. There are lots of ways that life can come crashing down around Forbes’s ears but there’s no way to know which of the many possible disasters might bring that about. And there’s no way of knowing whether Forbes will somehow figure a way out, or whether he’ll get some lucky break.

Forbes is the narrator of the story and The Pitfall is a fine example of the effective use of first-person narration. All we know is what Forbes knows, or thinks he knows. Neither Forbes nor the reader really knows what is going on in Mona’s head, or which way she is likely to jump if things come to a crisis. Forbes is crazy about her and he may be seeing her through the rose-coloured glasses of love. Neither Forbes nor the reader has any idea what is driving Mac. Maybe Mac is totally sane and this is just a cruel game he likes to play with other people’s lives. Maybe he’s totally sane but in the grip of a sexual obsession. Or maybe when it comes to Mona he is just as insane as Forbes.

There’s no way for either Forbes or the reader to predict the actions of Mona or of Mac.

In fact the plot is resolved very neatly. This is top-tier noir fiction. Highly recommended.

The Pitfall has been re-issued in paperback by Stark House.

I’ve also reviewed the excellent movie adaptation - Pitfall (1948).

Ralph Milne Farley’s The Hidden Universe

Roger Sherman Hoar (1887-1963) was an American politician who also wrote a considerable amount of rather interesting pulp science fiction under the name Ralph Milne Farley. His novel The Hidden Universe was published in 1939.

Cathcart is an engineer but times are tough so he’s working as a truck driver for a huge industrial conglomerate, Frain industries. Malcolm Frain has a reputation as a slightly eccentric charismatic billionaire with a genius for business.

Like so many Frain Industries employees Cathcart hopes for a chance of a job in one of Frain’s colonies. Cathcart has another motive as well - his brother landed a job in one of the colonies a while back and Cathcart hasn’t heard from his since. He’d like to make sure his brother is OK. Nobody knows exactly where these colonies are but it's reasonable to assume that they're scattered in far-flung corners of the globe.

To get a shot at a job in the colonies Cathcart has to go through an interview with Frain’s daughter Donna. Cathcart is fascinated by Donna from the start.

Cathcart gets his chance and as soon as he arrives in the colony he notices some odd things. Things that interest him as a man with scientific training. Things like the length of the days and the fact that no stars are visible at night.

He is employed as an assistant to Dr Freundlich, a good-natured scientific genius who is a big deal in the colony. Dr Freundlich has noticed other odd things about the colony.

The colony is, superficially at least, a utopia. Everybody has a good well-paid job. Good housing is available to everyone. There is prosperity and security. Of course there will always be trouble-makers and there’s a faction known as the Populists constantly trying to create unrest.

Both Dr Freundlich and Cathcart become more and more determined to find an explanation for the increasing number of puzzling things they keep noticing. They’re subtle things which most people would not be aware of but to scientists they are very disturbing indeed. There is something about the light. And the way it rains. The explanation they eventually come up with is crazy and impossible but they’re convinced that it’s true.

That explanation has momentous consequences for those hoping one day to return to their old lives and their old homes.

There are some wildly inventive and imaginative ideas in this novel. They might be scientific nonsense but they are undeniably clever and there’s lots of deliriously loopy technobabble. The world in which Cathcart finds himself is very strange indeed but I don’t propose to spoil things by giving you any hints as to the bizarre nature of that world.

There’s also political intrigue as Cathcart reluctantly gets mixed up with the Populists. There are others who suspect that there’s something odd about this colony but Cathcart is not at all sure if he can trust them. He’s also not sure that he can trust Donna although he’d very much like to.

The novel offers adventure and action and romance and a great deal of wild craziness. It’s fast-paced and pulpy and fun.

The pulp science fiction of the 1920s and 30s is well worth exploring. Science fiction was not yet totally dominated by spaceships and death rays. There weren’t really any rigid genre conventions. There were plenty of wildly entertaining offbeat stories such as this. If wildly entertaining and offbeat are concepts that appeal to you then The Hidden Universe is highly recommended.

This novel is published in an Armchair Fiction two-novel paperback edition, paired with Frederik Pohl’s Danger Moon.

I’ve also reviewed Ralph Milne Farley’s 1924 novel The Radio Man and it’s very much worth checking out.

Victor Canning's Castle Minerva

Victor Canning (1911-1986) was an English writer whose first novel was published in 1934, his last in 1985. He wrote historical fiction, children’s books, private eye thrillers and spy fiction. He was very successful but sadly is now largely forgotten. His spy thriller Castle Minerva appeared in 1955.

David Fraser had done espionage work during the war but has settled down into a contented life as a schoolmaster. On a climbing holiday in Wales he runs into his old commanding officer, Colonel Drexel. Drexel saved David’s life during the war so when Drexel asks him to take on a cloak-and-dagger job he cannot refuse.

It seems simple. He has to babysit a young Arab prince named Jamal, in a villa in the south of France near the Spanish border.

David has a bit of a thing for aquariums and in the local aquarium he spots a pretty young woman. Being an ex-spy David knows when he’s under surveillance and this girl definitely seems to be watching him. Then she drops her handbag, and it’s obvious that she has done this deliberately. She is trying to attract his attention. She certainly has no trouble doing that. They meet again later. Her name is Sophie. David is hopelessly in love with her.

By this time alarm bells should be ringing in David’s head. It’s not just the meeting with the girl. It’s also her two male friends, very unsavoury types to be friends of such a nice girl. And there’s the missing key. And the ’phone call about the motor launch. And the dogs that don’t bark when they should. Those alarms bells don’t ring because David is too busy daydreaming about his future life with Sophie. They will of course get married. He’s not sure how many children they will have. Sophie certainly reciprocates his romantic feelings.

David has also made the acquaintance of Dunwoody, a genial eccentric middle-aged Englishman who always just happens to be on hand when something interesting happens.

Then David’s world collapses about his ears. The job he’s doing for Drexel goes very wrong. Jamal is gone. David is under police suspicion. He realises that Drexel thinks his protégé has turned traitor. David is held prisoner, but not by the police. He knows that Sophie cannot be involved in anything underhand. She is after all the girl he’s going to marry. But David is in a lot of trouble and things just keep getting worse.

There has been betrayal but there are quite a few suspects.

An interesting aspect to this novel is Canning’s brutally realistic, even cynical, view of the worlds of espionage and government. The background to David’s adventure is a power struggle in the tiny Arab principality of Ramaut. There are several players in this power struggle, one of them being the British Government. The British Government isn’t interested in freedom and democracy, or high moral principles, or the welfare of the people of Ramaut or even for that matter the welfare of the British people. Ramaut has zero strategic importance. But there is oil in Ramaut. The British Government is serving the commercial interests of a British oil company. The only consideration is money.

There is plenty of moral murkiness in this story. The bad guys don’t do bad things because they’re evil. They’re not actually evil. They do bad things for comprehensible motives. The good guys aren’t exactly paragons of virtue. Even David is no knight in shining armour. He doesn’t give a damn about freedom and democracy or Queen and Country or the people of Ramaut. His motivations are entirely personal. He doesn’t like being betrayed, he wants revenge for wrongs he has suffered and he wants the girl. He is a decent man and a likeable hero but he’s no saint.

Sophie is complicated as well. There are things about her that David needs to know but doesn’t. She could of course be the femme fatale here but she could just as easily be a victim or an innocent bystander.

This is very much a psychological spy novel. It’s more in the gritty realist tradition of Graham Greene, Eric Ambler and (later) Len Deighton than in the action-adventure Bond tradition. There is plenty of moral complexity. But it’s also very entertaining. The plotting is tight and clever, Canning pulls off some superb suspense sequences and some fine action scenes. There’s nothing dull about this novel.

Castle Minerva is superb spy fiction. Very highly recommended.

I’ve also reviewed Canning’s excellent 1948 spy thriller Panther’s Moon (which really does involve panthers and oddly enough there are real tigers involved in Castle Minerva).

M. Scott Michel's The Black Key

The Black Key is an obscure 1946 murder mystery which belongs to a bizarre but fascinating sub-genre - the psychiatric murder mystery.

M. Scott Michel (1916-1992) was an American playwright and crime writer. He wrote a handful of mysteries in the late 40s and early 50s. Intriguingly Michel seems to have written at least one other psychiatric mystery.

Alex Cornell is a prominent psychoanalyst who has a disturbing patient show up on his doorstep. A pretty young blonde Englishwoman has no idea of her own name or where she comes from, she has no memory of anything, but she fears she has murdered a woman. She doesn’t remember doing so but she does remember the woman’s murdered body at her feet. Alex is dubious until he sees the body for himself.

Obviously he should turn the young woman over to the police but he doesn’t. He is fascinated by her. He is also fascinated by the opportunity to play amateur detective and to solve the murder by means of psychoanalysis.

He discovers that the girl’s name is Serena. The murdered woman was Marion. Marion was a live-in nurse employed by a rich old guy named Dudley Briggs. The Briggs household also includes Dudley’s niece Pauline, his nephew Richard and Pauline’s friend Serena.

Dudley had intended to marry Marion, which would have put the inheritances of Pauline and Richard in doubt. Richard is an idle drunk who hopes for a political carer. Pauline is a doctor and she has lots of secrets. For starters there’s the mysterious deaths of her parents many years earlier. Her father may have been a madman and it may have been a murder-suicide. There’s also something involving Pauline that happened years ago in London.

There’s another doctor involved with this household. There’s Richard’s fiancée Edna and Edna’s father. There’s also Roff. We don’t know where he fits in. Perhaps he’s Pauline’s lover. And there’s the Cockney blackmailer. 

All of these people seem to have motives for murder. Perhaps Serena had a motive as well. The second murder makes things even more puzzling.

Alex is frantically analysing Serena’s dreams. He is sure they will provide the answers. This is not just a psychiatric mystery, it’s a Freudian psychiatric mystery. We get lots of wacky psychobabble and Freudian psychobabble is even more fun than the regular kind. Alex is excited to find all kinds of symbols in Serena’s dreams. Flowers, coffins, clouds, mysterious bearded men, men with thick glasses, a sinister ugly man. And most of all, the black key. Alex is in Seventh Heaven. He comes up with all kinds of delightfully loopy explanations for these symbols.

Alex does a bit of regular amateur detective stuff as well, with mixed success.

Of course Alex and Serena start to fall in love, so we get even more musing psychobabble about transference.

Of course it is impossible today to take any of this seriously, it all just seems so silly and wacky, but in 1946 people took psychoanalysis very seriously indeed. And it was a very big thing in the arts and entertainment.

I simply adore 1940s mystery novels and movies dealing with psychiatry, like Hitchcock’s 
Spellbound (1945) and Otto Preminger’s Whirlpool (1949).

The Black Key is totally off-the-wall and I won’t pretend that the plot is even slightly believable. The dream clues are just crazy and ludicrously contrived. But if you don’t mind that it doesn’t make sense it is entertaining and it’s highly recommended if only for its oddness.

Armchair Fiction have paired this one with Robert Moore Williams’ Somebody Wants You Dead in a two-novel paperback edition.