Synopses & Reviews
Octavius Gaye, founder and creator of the hugely successful magazine empire, Plain Man Enterprises, saw himself as the original “plain man.” The truth, however, was rather different, and Gaye was an unscrupulous tycoon with a strangely captivating nature who surrounded himself with a series of weak-willed puppets that he manipulated to his heart’s content. One such puppet was Francie Lake, and as the plot unfolds, Symons reveals how and why Francie simply had to die.
About the Author
Julian Symons is primarily remembered as a master of the art of crime writing. However, in his eighty-two years he produced an enormously varied body of work. Social and military history, biography and criticism were all subjects he touched upon with remarkable success, and he held a distinguished reputation in each field. His novels were consistently highly individual and expertly crafted, raising him above other crime writers of his day. It is for this that he was awarded various prizes, and, in 1982, named as Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America â€" an honour accorded to only three other English writers before him: Graham Greene, Eric Ambler and Daphne Du Maurier. He succeeded Agatha Christie as the president of Britain’s Detection Club, a position he held from 1976 to 1985, and in 1990 he was awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger from the British Crime Writers for his lifetime’s achievement in crime fiction. Symons died in 1994.