# 4 Spend Game (©1980)
Genre: Mystery
Location: England
Spend Game (1980), one of Gash's best novels, begins with Lovejoy and a lady friend seeing a car go over an embankment and finding its driver--an old army friend and local antique dealer--dead. Investigating, Lovejoy tries to trace the missing escritoire the friend had purchased the night before and, in the process, takes up with another lady and finds a message and key in the desk of a deceased doctor. Although a massive black saloon automobile tries to drive him off the road, much to the regret of its driver, Lovejoy's "industrial archaeology" uncovers a solid silver Victorian steam engine hidden in an underground tunnel. Nearly entombed permanently by outsiders who had murdered his friend, he finds solace in an effective, violent, and devastating use of the engine as a weapon.
In this novel, and throughout the series, when not obsessed by antiques, Lovejoy is beleaguered by women, the joy and bane of his life. The women who surround him (and they are plentiful) end up mothering him, bringing him food, cuddling him for warmth, trying to clean up his cottage against his protests. Nonetheless, they always fail, for he is incorrigibly set in his ways: "Honestly, I just can't see the point of moving things to a fixed spot for the sake of mere tidiness. Things only wander about again. I find it more sensible just to stay vigilant, simply keep on the lookout for essentials like towels and the odd pan. In fact, I'd say neatness is a time-waster." After spending several hours scrubbing a floor, he sees little accomplished and resolves to leave such obsessive tidying to others; moreover, he bemoans the negative effects of excessive cleaning on antiques, which lose their value from the absence of an aged fingerprint or grime identifiable from a significant locale.
In this novel, and throughout the series, when not obsessed by antiques, Lovejoy is beleaguered by women, the joy and bane of his life. The women who surround him (and they are plentiful) end up mothering him, bringing him food, cuddling him for warmth, trying to clean up his cottage against his protests. Nonetheless, they always fail, for he is incorrigibly set in his ways: "Honestly, I just can't see the point of moving things to a fixed spot for the sake of mere tidiness. Things only wander about again. I find it more sensible just to stay vigilant, simply keep on the lookout for essentials like towels and the odd pan. In fact, I'd say neatness is a time-waster." After spending several hours scrubbing a floor, he sees little accomplished and resolves to leave such obsessive tidying to others; moreover, he bemoans the negative effects of excessive cleaning on antiques, which lose their value from the absence of an aged fingerprint or grime identifiable from a significant locale.
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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