FFB: The Night the Gods Smiled

Eric Wright was born in London, England in 1929 to a poor working-class family, an experience he later detailed in his memoir, Always Give a Penny to a Blind Man. When he was 22, he immigrated to Canada and eventually became an English professor, chair of the English department, then Dean of Arts at Ryerson Institute of Technology in Toronto.

Wright penned dozens of stories, many of them crime fiction, and served as editor of Criminal Shorts: Mysteries by Canadian Crime Writers, published in 1992. He also created not one or two, but four different detective series including police officer Mel Pickett; Lucy Trimble Brenner, who inherits a Toronto private detective agency; and part-time community college English teacher named Joe Barley, who also works part-time as a private eye.

His most popular literary creation, however, is Charlie Salter, a Toronto cop suffering from middle-aged depression when he's first introduced in The Night the Gods Smiled, the author's debut novel in 1983. The book won the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Novel, the Crime Writer's Association's John Creasey Award, and the City of Toronto Book Award.

At the start of the story, Salter's doldrums are compounded by police politics that have left him working what's essentially a desk job. When he's offered the first interesting case to come along in awhile, he jumps at the chance. David Summers, an English professor at a local college, has been murdered in a Montreal hotel room during a conference. Initially, the only clues are a lipstick-marked glass and a whisky bottle used to crush Summer's skull, but Salter soon realizes he has a long list of potential suspects, including a prostitute, mistresses, the victim's bitter wife, his squash partner, his stock-broker and assorted colleagues and students.

Salter is an engaging character, self-righteous, outspoken, and happily married, albeit with an undercurrent of cultural/class friction between his police officer status and his wife's wealthy family. His mid-life crisis sees him taking up squash after meeting the victim's playing partner, and developing a crush on Summer's favorite student, a free-spirited young woman named Molly.

Wright is known for his "lucid and agreeably laconic style," as one reviewer put it, while Kirkus adds that "the balance between sleuthing and gentle character-comedy is maintained beautifully throughout—with superior dialogue, intriguing Canadian specifics, and not a single cliché in sight." There were eleven Salter books in all, first published in hardcover until the series was dropped by Signet. A few reprints are available, including an omnibus of the first three novels in the series, published by Dundurn.

Comments

[Richard R]

I like the Salter books a lot, having read them all a couple of years ago. Good stuff.