The Late Train to Gipsy Hill

By Alan Johnson https://alanjohnsonbooks.co.uk/

Published by Headline Publishing Group (a Hachette UK company) https://www.headline.co.uk/

341 pages ISBN 9781472286123

Publication date 2 September 2021

I was provided with a review copy from the publisher, many thanks to Caitlin Raynor for organising this.

From the blurb

Gary Nelson has a routine for the commute to his rather dull job in the city. Each day, he watches transfixed as a beautiful woman on the train applies her make up in a ritual he now knows by heart. He’s never dared to strike up a conversation . . . but maybe one day.

Then one evening, on the late train to Gipsy Hill, the woman who has beguiled him for so long, invites him to take the empty seat beside her. Fiddling with her mascara, she holds up her mirror and Gary reads the words ‘HELP ME’ scrawled in sticky black letters on the glass.

From that moment, Gary’s life is turned on its head. He finds himself on the run from the Russian mafia, the FSB and even the Metropolitan Police – all because of what because this mysterious young woman may have witnessed. In the race to find out the truth, Gary discovers that there is a lot more to her than meets the eye…

Synopsis

Unlucky in love Gary is besotted by a young woman he sees on the train every day. He thinks she doesn’t notice him but he’s wrong, she does, and it is him she looks to for help.  Together they go on the run escaping the clutches of murderous Russians and the police.

Gary falls in love with beautiful and resourceful young woman, but everything is not as it seems.  How many London hotel waitresses have a gun and know how to use it?  Arina takes the lead, Gary follows, and they both save each other from impending danger.

They arrange to ‘come in from the cold’ back where it all started at the Strand Hotel, but it proves to be a case of best laid plans of mice and men…

My thoughts

Two modern publishing phenomenon I have so far avoided is the celebrity fiction writer and the superstar subcontractor.  The reasons are clear why publishers like them, sales volume.  The celebrity’s fanbase and the mentorship of the fledgling writer by the best-selling author’s effectively working to underwrite the costs of publication for the big players in the business and naturally some will prove to be very lucrative.  They’ve always struck me as somewhat exploitative of either the loyal reader or the writer who does the bulk of the work before the fairy dust is sprinkled on it.  Perhaps I’m too much of an embittered cynic; Richard’s Osman’s novels are getting rave reviews so perhaps its time for me to drop my irrational prejudices.

Alan Johnson is probably best known as a Labour Home Secretary and MP in my hometown of Hull but before that he had a tough childhood, then worked in the Post Office climbing his way up the ranks of the Union movement.  All of this he has laid out in three award winning volumes of autobiography (which I haven’t read) so he can clearly write non-fiction which is a good start.

In the publicity he sets out his lifelong love of books and how he wrote stories and poems in Grammar School and had the inevitable rejection slips from publishers, so we can see he has a history of wanting to write.  The first tip given is write about what you know about, and Mr Johnson has put together a crime novel with a central espionage theme and based it on the areas he knows best, London where he was born and spent his formative years.

The plot is set in 2015 and centres upon the poisoning of two Russian nationals, one deliberate and one seemingly by accident.  Yes, there was a bit of it about a few years ago and a previously unlikely fondness for Salisbury Cathedral amongst members of the FSB.  In one instance the poison is polonium-210 administered in coffee the modern poison that leaves radioactive traces all over.  The other poison is a throwback to the Twentieth Century, thallium, administered in a switched water bottle.  Not sure if this is a nod to probably the most modern poisoner Graham Young (the tea-cup poisoner) who used thallium, if it is then in the words of Peckham’s favourite son ‘chapeau’ old boy.

The style is like modern take on the crime classics he read as a boy and reads well and skips along nicely.  There’s a chase scene loved by thrillers of the 20’s and 30’s such as Buchans ‘The Thirty-Nine Steps’, though this one only extends to Aylesbury where Gary’s mother lives. Mr Johnson clearly loves his cricket and trains, and these are nicely woven into the plot along with a Parcel Force van.  The final set piece fits in with this and is underplayed by modern standards with the minimum of violence.  There is even a ‘drawing room reveal’ but instead of Poirot explaining how he cracked the impossible case it’s Detective Superintendent Mangan explaining to Gary the machinations behind the plot. 

The characters are nicely drawn; the Russians ruthless, Arina mysterious, Gary and his mum likeable and Mangan the sort of cop we would want in our case if we were in Gary’s shoes.

It is, however, a little bit clunky in parts, comparing a decorators use of sugar soap in preparation to that of applying make up and Knuckles’ coming out are miss steps that spring to mind.  He also includes some modern cultural references on music, but I suspect he would be more comfortable discussing the Beatles with Hunter Davies (the self-appointed seventh Beatle who provides a quote of the back).  This doesn’t detract from enjoyment though and I’m sure some readers wouldn’t give it a second thought.  I chuckled at the ‘The Spy Who Came in from Accounts Payable’ jibe but it was a little short of the wit and sparkle to raise it from a good read to a great read.

In the end I enjoyed it more than I was expecting, it’s a competently written first novel in the style of a mid-twentieth century crime story but updated with a modern plot twist.