No Sale

Set in Antwerp and translated from Flemish, No Sale is a nifty little thriller that manages to both capture the essence of classic crime fiction and be strikingly original.

Professor Victor Cox is a film history university lecturer who has used his obsession with Hollywood as a blindfold to block out the deterioration of his alcoholic wife. When she meets a nasty but inevitable end, Victor is given a fresh chance at life and love - despite being initially suspected of her murder. Chief Superintendent Luyckx believes him innocent, but in the years to come a succession of movie-related murders of women Victor knows, coupled with the disappearance of his flighty young girlfriend, seem to suggest otherwise. Soon even Victor starts to believe he might be the killer.

Written partly in the third person and partly from Victor's point of view in diary form, No Sale zips along at a tidy pace, weaving elements of classic whodunit into the poignant story of an old man who prefers the movies to real life. The research is impressive - perhaps Conrad is as much a film buff as Victor - and the murders have an originality in their gruesomeness. The end feels slightly rushed - Conrad obviously prefers the set-up to the denouement - and the translation is at times a touch unsubtle, but these are minor flaws in what is an entertaining film noir in book form.