The Once a Year Man — Miles Tripp

John Samson series

He knew her as Anthea Charles though he noticed that the inside of a gold compact was inscribed 'to A.L. with love'. She was young and cool and beautiful. They first met in Nairobi. then it was Mombassa, Cairo, Venice. Paris was to be next and Mendip noticed that each venue seemed to get closer to home than the one before. Things weren't the same as usual in Paris. The next rendezvous was London. In London she didn't turn up at all, but Mendip got a very odd message. And then a great many odd things began to happen.

Mendip calls to his aid the fat private detective John Samson, who first appeared in Obsession. This man was described by Edmund Crispin as 'an unusual character' and by Maurice Richardson as 'wonderfully seedy and verisimilitudinous'. He is pretty competent too, in spite of his philosophy about the concept of time.

All the complex threads come together at last in a sustained and tremendously exciting finale. Miles Tripp has made the most of a marvelous idea, and the professional sweep of the narrative will hold readers absorbed.