The Odd Flamingo - Nina Bawden

A real change of mood for my second reprint of the year nomination - Nina Bawden's The Odd Flamingo lands us in the sultry heat of August and gives us a much seedier overview of the 1950s. Only two years separate this one from Death In Ambush, but there's little room for nostalgia or the cosy certainties of village life. 

The heat of one particular day has been broken by a thunderstorm, solicitor Will Hunt is regarding his roses when the phone disturbs his tranquility. On the other end is Celia, wife of his best friend - and something is very wrong. Humphrey Stone is the charismatic headmaster of the local boys school, and here in their home, which comes with the job, is a girl claiming that he's got her pregnant and tried to push her into an illegal abortion. The stakes are high, if she's telling the truth the Stones lose reputation, his job, their home,and their place in local society. Humphrey is away, Celia wants Will to interview the girl and judge if she's telling the truth. 

Will thinks she is, and from there his carefully ordered life is pushed into nightmare territory. He tracks Humphrey down to a sordid little Soho club - The Odd Flamingo - they used to go to in their youth when it felt edgy. Will has long outgrown it; Humphrey seems not to have grown up at all. In the wake of Rose's claims, somewhat denied by Humphrey there will be blackmail, murder, brushes with drug pushers, criminal gangs, and more as Will steadily more disillusioned at each turn and watched over by a pitying policeman tries to help his friend and find somene left with some innocence.

The grittiness is an excellent counterpoint to the now more familiar and altogether more sanitised view of the 1950s that we get from Agatha Christie - or indeed Susan Gilruth and others. The British Library Crime Classics series have been brilliant at unearthing lost gems that do this, contemporary readers would have been well enough aware of this side of society, but I think we mostly imagine a safer time when we look back. 

Bawden instead gives us a brilliantly drawn portrait of extremely banal evil and she does it by letting us see Will struggle with each betrayal. It's elegant writing that does not dwell on sordid details but gives us time to think through the implications of each revelation. I could almost feel the humidity and grubbiness drifting up from the hot London streets and strongly identified with Will who really doesn't want to be involved in any of it, but at the same time can't see how to avoid the obligation. 

As a final note, a gay character is described in somewhat homophobic terms. I don't think this particularly reflects Bawden's views, but rather describes a character who is meant to be morally ambiguous on several levels and displays the imperfect side of Will's character. That said, you probably wouldn;t get away with it now