Tuesday, October 13, 2009

The Judas Pair





# 1 The Judas Pair (©1977)

Genre: Mystery



Location: England


http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/g/jonathan-gash/judas-pair.htm





The Judas Pair won the Creasey Award of 1977 for the best first crime novel of the year. Lovejoy's scout, Tinker Dill, brings him a promising customer, a Mr. Field, who employs Lovejoy to track down a legendary pair of dueling pistols, the Judas pair of the title, which may not actually exist but which the would-be buyer claims recently killed his brother. As Lovejoy explains in the opening, "This story's about greed, desire, love and death--in the world of antiques you get the lot." Motivated by the hope of an enormous fee, he follows the trail to Norfolk, where he is caught up in violence. When his latest girlfriend is murdered, he pursues the culprit, spurred on by vengeance and aided by luck, and stirs things up enough to cause another murder, to be attacked with a crossbow, and to find himself entombed in his own burning cottage. He survives, thanks to his own ingenious construction of an air-pumping device, but is left frustrated and distraught: "All life in that moment seemed utterly mad. No wonder people just set out determined to simply get what they could. Who could blame them? The proof was here, in ashes above me. And I, honest, God-fearing Lovejoy, finished up buried underneath the smoking ruins of my own bloody house, cut, filthy, bleeding, weary, and as naked as the day I was born."
Bent on revenge, he confronts the insane murderer in a deadly final duel with ice bullets and weapons as warped as their owner. Lovejoy's ethics, labeled "situational" by Robin W. Winks of the New Republic and "stretchable" by Callendar in The New York Times Book Review, do indeed bend with the wind. Lovejoy is not above selling a fake to an expert who should know better, but he gives a cautionary tip to the amateur buyer who has no way of determining value for himself. Such, implies Gash, are the shifting ethics of the antique trade, in which gamesmanship and trust are in constant competition. Lovejoy lies without hesitation and grabs what he can while he can--then spends it on feeding birds and assisting the down-and-out. When his latest girlfriend whimpers, "All you think of is antiques," he stands amazed at her self-centeredness and points out to readers that "Women have no sense of priorities." At the end of The Judas Pair the valuable dueling pistols for which he has searched throughout most of the book quietly disappear into his own secret hideaway, as do many other valuable items throughout the novels. Lovejoy waxes eloquent about shady possibilities. He may be seedy and unscrupulous and a perpetual complainer, but he is not a man to be trifled with, for, when cheated, he retaliates in full. When an interrogation subject tells him to "Get stuffed," Lovejoy's forehead turns white hot; he struggles for control, then pushes the man back, knees him in the crotch, and butts his nose with his head: "heaven knows where I learned it. I honestly am a peaceable chap," he tells readers as the other man scrambles away in terror.
This first novel establishes the pattern of the Lovejoy mysteries, a pattern that remains surprisingly similar beneath the surface variations that keep the pace fast, the action exciting, and the details fascinating. The novels are told in the lively, eccentric, first-person narrative voice of Lovejoy, who speaks directly to the reader as a sympathetic confidant. They are each dedicated to an ancient Chinese god such as Wu Ch'ang Kuei, who "brings a fortune in treasure." They begin with Lovejoy's general comments on the importance of antiques and the mysteries of women and his affirmation that he is the only person the reader can trust. Lovejoy then proceeds to a tale centered around some intriguing antiques scam, the larger and the more complex the better. Usually, Lovejoy, short of cash and hungry enough to take on anything (paper-delivery route, day labor on local farms, and so on, much like Grant the impoverished student), accepts a commission related to antiques (finding a particular item, tracking down a dealer, replacing a stolen treasure with a credible forgery) and works hand in hand with a woman (either the person who commissioned the work or an employee of that person). As he halfheartedly pursues his assignment, Lovejoy becomes caught up in some sort of caper involving forgery, burglary, or some outrageous con perpetrated by outsiders rather than the closed circle of his neighboring antiquarians. Often an older bystander who has been close to Lovejoy or whom he considers part of his world is threatened, injured, or killed, and Lovejoy decides on revenge. The police are less than tolerant of his motives and methods, but he uses them and they use him. Consequently, he is always taking justice into his own hands; a friend is murdered and his automatic response is "I was going to kill somebody." One judge begs him to simply point the way and let the police round up the murderers, but Lovejoy feels compelled to handle the dirty work himself. Lovejoy gravitates toward peculiar predicaments and perpetual trouble--with women, with fellow dealers, with wealthy clients, with thieves and forgers and con artists of all sorts. He is a bit of a coward but daring when driven by a lust for antiques or revenge. These unpredictable shifts keep reader interest in the character lively, for Lovejoy is always capable of surprises. Episodic action sends Lovejoy ranging far afield from East Anglia, the center of his trade, to changing locales--from nearby villages to the Isle of Man, Guersey, Jersey, or even foreign lands. Interspersed are intriguing, often scholarly disquisitions on antiques and art.
Throughout this first novel and the series that follows, Lovejoy's detective method is to talk to large numbers of people, observe their behavior, trust his instincts, gather gossip, and watch and wait until clues fall into place, plots are unraveled, and murderers exposed. He trusts neither motive nor alibi, both of which he calls "the falsehoods of murder" in The Grace in Older Women (1995). His charm, his wit, his deductive powers, his eye for detail, his doggedness, his cavalier approach to life, and his luck eventually lead to the affair being settled--to Lovejoy's satisfaction if to no one else's. During the course of these events Lovejoy usually juggles several amorous ladies (most-often married), one of whom outrages his sensibilities by destroying an exquisite antique or by manipulating and controlling his life. At the same time, he exposes the limitations and hypocrisy of upstanding citizens and manages to spread around a lot of IOUs to acquire valuable antiques, create a couple of faked "antiques," feed an assortment of robins, budgerigars, squirrels, kittens, hedgehogs, and the occasional small child, and aid the impoverished (abandoned mothers, out-of-work craftsmen, alcoholics, indentured servants, and aged pensioners). Inevitably, Lovejoy must do something heroic, all the while complaining of his fear and reveling in his cowardice. Again, part of the character's appeal is his exaggerated human frailty combined with sometimes startling romantic gestures.
Starting in The Judas Pair and continuing throughout the series, Gash tosses out gems of Lovejoy wisdom: "Information, like statistics, is rubbish," "Ditching a priceless necklace . . . in a temper is still basically an unreasonable act," "Removing people is the ultimate crime," "Embarrassment's my life style," "There's mileage in groveling," "Love creates art; precision makes fakes," "Man doth live on bread alone, if antiques are thrown in as well," "Greater love hath no man than that he gives up his life for his collection," "A woman marries because a man is less trouble than her mother," and "Modern means lunatic." Through Lovejoy, Gash gives vent to that side of him that takes pleasure in turning the world upside down and shocking the stuffy and conventional.


Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 276: British Mystery and Thriller Writers Since 1960. A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book. Edited by Gina Macdonald, Nicholls State University. Gale Group, 2003. pp. 160-174.

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