THE PROGRESS OF A CRIME

Guy Fawkes rides again, though a good deal more bleakly, in this Edgar-winning 1960 reprint by Symons (1912-1994).

It’s not much of an assignment for someone who’s not much of a reporter on a local paper: Take a train to Far Wether to cover a fundraising dance with a fireworks theme in place of a regular reporter who’s down with the flu. Before the night is over, though, Gazette rookie Hugh Bennett has watched the arrival of the Peter Street lot, seen the chaos the invading teenagers bring to the event, and witnessed the fatal stabbing of emcee James Corby, a partner in a timber business, when the ruffians’ jesting attempt to relieve him of his fireworks gets out of hand. Given the blanket of confusion the holiday, the disruption, and the murder have thrown over the event, it’s not clear who wielded the knife that killed Corby, but soon enough Detective Superintendent Frederick Twicker, who’s been sent down by Scotland Yard, arrests gang leader Jack “King” Garney and Leslie Gardner, who’s clearly a lot more devoted to Garney than to his own father, soggy Labour firebrand George Gardner. Throughout the investigation and the trial that follows, Symons fastens a gimlet eye on even the most sympathetic characters, who seem equally damned, and self-damned, whether or not justice is done. The enduring fear of juvenile delinquents that provides the engine for an appended short story, “The Tigers of Subtopia” (1982), makes it a perfect complement.

The first of Symons’ unmistakably sociological procedurals, and in some ways still the finest.