by G. P. Field
‘Knife, knife,’ he yelled. Then the light was gone.
Sharpe grabbed the man’s forearm and held it, knife immobilised for a moment. With his right hand he grasped the man by the throat and lifted him off the ground. A terrible, strangled gurgle emanated from the smaller man. His feet started kicking out in panic. Sharpe kept him airborne, his huge hand wrapped around the man’s throat.
Israel moved closer. He could see the figure against the wall kicking and struggling. ‘No, stop – you’re going to kill him.’
Sharpe turned his head slowly to face Israel, his expression blank as the body against the wall convulsed. He kept the chokehold. The body of his victim went limp. The Doodler was gone forever.
‘You can let him go… he is dead.’
‘Yeah, maybe.’ Sharpe kept his grip strong. There was no sense of remorse or wrongdoing. At length he let the body slide down the wall opposite.
Israel dived down and looked for a pulse in what he already knew was a futile cause. ‘You didn’t have to do that.’
‘Yeah, I did.’ Sharpe rolled his eyes in the dark, the whites showing and receding. He stepped towards Israel and towered over him. ‘Go... Go away and forget you ever saw this.’
Israel stood and held his ground. ‘I don’t know if I can do that Don.’
‘Hey,’ the big man lost his cool and gave Israel a shove, sending him reeling into the alley wall. ‘I’m out here keeping folks safe and keeping shit like that off the street.’ He pointed at the slumped form of Wichita man. It was the man who tried to make polite conversation with him on the Alcatraz ferry, the man who had stood over him while he slept only yesterday afternoon.
‘If you take it further’ growled the big policeman, ‘and I know you won’t. Then I’ll contest it. I’ll say it was self-defence and you know I’ll win.’
Israel nodded slowly before he turned his back and walked back down the alley, his shoulders slumped. Out on the street he saw Bart and Scott as they trotted towards him.
‘Have you seen Don?’ asked Bart breathlessly.
Israel shook his head mournfully. ‘No detective, I have not.’
In 1977, Harvey Milk was elected to the office of Supervisor of the City of San Francisco. Harvey was the first openly gay U.S. citizen elected to public office. Both Harvey and his partner Scott Smith are remembered as pioneers of the gay rights movement. I owe a debt of thanks to Dan Nicoletta, who worked at Castro Camera in 1976 with Harvey and Scott. Dan graciously took the time to talk to me about his experiences at Castro Camera and help me understand the nature of Harvey and Scott’s relationship more deeply. On November 27th 1978, Harvey’s fellow Supervisor, Dan White walked into San Francisco City Hall and shot and killed both Harvey and San Francisco mayor George Moscone.
The Doodler was a real mass murderer who killed fourteen people between 1974 and 1976 in the manner described in this story. It is claimed that some victims escaped the killer at the last moment and were able to identify him but refused to do so for fear of public exposure as homosexual. One of these potential witnesses was rumoured to be a famous media personality. The Doodler was never caught, but he disappeared without a trace in the mid 1970s.
Rock Hudson was filming the TV series Macmillan and Wife in San Francisco during the period the Doodler was active.
Israel Wren is a fictional detective. In this story Israel is twenty-seven years old. He also appears as a sixty-five year sleuth in the novel Death on Dangar Island….
Death on Dangar Island
Professor Israel Wren doesn't think Roxanne Duncan died of snakebite on Dangar Island — no matter what anybody says. And he's right… Hardboiled DI Scott McKinnon takes an instant dislike to the fastidious Israel and his conspiracy theories and he looks ready to sign the case off as an accident. Driven by his sense of injustice and a demon that visits him in his sleep, Israel is compelled to launch his own investigation into Roxanne's death, dragging along his Aussie mate Gary, who was hoping his island holiday might have been more about fishing and cricket than secrets and intrigue. Can the professor prove Roxanne’s death was no accident? Will he and Gary be able to corner the killer before more people die? Join them on an island full of suspicious locals, teenage goths and deadly serpents — an island named Dangar. Packed with quirky characters, Death on Dangar Island delivers an up-tempo murder mystery in a contemporary Australian setting.
Praise for Death on Dangar Island …
The Bottom Line: A cozy, gripping whodunit driven by a deliciously flamboyant hero. Anyone searching for the new Agatha Christie should look no further than GP Field.
Professor Israel Wren is a birdwatcher of the highest order. After protecting an egg-filled nest from predatory myna birds, he’s able to recognize - among a chorus of multi-species bird chatter - the mating call of a lilac-breasted roller, a species that hails from Africa, not Australia.
So when his friend Gary, an ex-lifeguard, calls the Professor to tell him that he found a dead girl on the beach, we have a strong inclination that Wren’s powers of observations are going to come in handy.
Before the police can arrive, professor Wren wastes no time in examining the body of the dead girl. Apart from noting the girl’s heavy makeup, tattoos and piercings, he notices that’s something’s very off about the situation.
Much like the relationship between Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot and Inspector Jaffe, Professor Wren irritates local law enforcement by questioning what appears to be a foregone conclusion: that the dead girl died of a snakebite.
We soon learn that the half Zulu, half English Professor Wren isn’t merely a birder. In fact, he’s not even a professor of ornithology. Rather, he’s a professor of English literature who, having co-authored a textbook still used to train detectives in Australia, built up a reputation as a master solver by volunteering his time to help the real police solve cases. Although he thinks of himself as a former “criminologist,” it’s clear from the get-go that his powers of observations haven’t diminished in the least.
We know from the start that the professor will no doubt solve the murder, and that Gary - who is far from his equal - will no doubt play a part. But as in any great mystery, the pleasure is in the journey, and that is something that Death on Dangar Island has in spades.
I’ve established that Field is adept at creating character and plot, but I should also mention that he’s a first-rate wordsmith. Apart from transporting us to a very believable location in Australia, he also uses his considerable powers to employ Professor Wren with a palpable voice: “It’s true that many people use Twitter as a megaphone for inconsequential thoughts, my friend. They tweet without thinking, without due consideration. As you know, I simply use it to collect information and occasionally ask a question or two. Not everyone uses Twitter to broadcast what they had for breakfast.”
Like his character, GP Field’s writing is anything but inconsequential. Let’s hope this is the first of many Professor Wren books.
Bella G Wright, bestthrillers.com
