Buy this book on-line CLEARY, JOHN: : HELGA'S WEBLONDON.COLLINS,1970. ISBN 0002213192.
UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn.FINE/FINE.No owner inscrptn but a small,tiny,faint discernible number/month,ink stamp (1134 JUN) to top corner of ffe and same repeated to top corner of title-page - printer/publisher mark? - and no price-clip to dw/dj.Colour illustrated upper panel and spine/backstrip, by Kenneth Farnhill (black, spider's web on grey background) with white, grey and yellow letters, with b/w critics reviews to rear panel.Dw/dj with minimal shelf-wear and negligible creasing to edges - no tears present - but miniscule rubbing/chipping of laminate to some edges but nothing major and minimal fading of the yellow letters to spine/backstrip.Top+fore-edges very, very minimally aged and generally clean and unmarked - unusual for a book of this age (1970) - contents bright, tight and virtually pristine, apart from aforementioned ink stamps, no dog-ear creases - book appears unread.Immaculate,
unblemished grey speckled paper-covered bds with bright, stamped gilt letters to spine/backstrip and immaculate, plain white eps with no off-set foxing from dw/dj's inner flaps to paste-downs.8vo,5-287pp includes half-title+title pages, and 16 chapters.
Detective-Sergeant Scobie Malone of the Sydney C.I.B.showed in 'The High Commissioner' that he could hold his own in the sophisticated European world of diplomacy and political intrigue.Back home
in the sweltering heat and humidity of early summer he is called out to investigate a murder in the damp, deserted
concrete labyrinth that lies under the still uncompleted Opera House.The naked body is that of a woman:a highly attractive woman.Who is she? Who killed her? Why? Cleary tells the story both of the crime and of its unravelling in two interlocking narratives, so that the reader sees the action alternatively through the eyes of Malone, as he sweats round the hard, sunbaked city following up clues left by various undesirable characters, and through the eyes of the characters themselves as the personality of Helga and the ramifying of her web is gradually disclosed.As from each angle the tension bites deeper so it is counterpointed on the other.Simply as a crime story the book is absorbing.But like
so many of the best crime stories it is much more.The intensity and sharpness with
which the characters and the background are described puts the book in the front rank of contemporary Australian novels;and
the observation of Australian values and habits of life has the vigour and forthrightness of the national character.
Cleary has joined that small group of writers that includes Chandler and Simenon
who succeed without apparent effort in conveying the light, the climate, the smells of a particular city and the environment of a small vividly realised group.In Scobie Malone he has created an Australian counterpart of Maigret or Philip Marlowe, a detective who belongs body and soul to the background of which crime is a part, as moss or lichen is part
of the trees or buildings on which one sees them.Of his many good books this is his best. Click here for full details of this book, to ask a question or to buy it on-line. Bibliophile Bookbase probably offers multiple copies of CLEARY, JOHN: : HELGA'S WEB. Click here to select from a complete list of available copies of this book. Bibliophile Bookbase lists over 5 million books, maps and prints including livres anciens, livres illustrées, livres d'occasion, libri rari and livres rares. Bibliophile Bookbase for antiquarian books, maps and prints. |