It felt in parts like something that I had read before - The Antiquarian by Julia Sanchez - being an art dealer involved in something a little shady. It was an okay read for me - just no connection.

A real British, Kitchen Sink-esque novel, which, if that's your bag, is well done. Honestly, to me it reads more like a rebuttal than a piece of work in itself - in a teenager just back from their first semester of college, we all know you took a sociology class, sullen sort of way. As such, I'd recommend a pass but, since it's not badly written, someone may enjoy it.

Although first published in 1976, the End of the Web feels as if it had been written decades earlier. It is written in a purposefully awkward and estranged manner, echoing the loneliness and awkwardness each person in it seems to feel. That distance and awkwardness unfortunately didn’t always work and made it a difficult read.

The End of the Web is an unusual mystery. It starts out conventionally enough. There’s Leo, a middle-aged antique dealer, who is flattered that the lovely, young Judy Latimer seems attracted to him and he’s not the type to be faithful. He’s got things on his mind, though, a dubious business deal and a missing colleague. But, just as you settle yourself into what seems to be a honey trap and how-to-get-out-of-it story, everything is turned upside down completely and all assumptions are tossed out the window. It was quite shocking and a bold departure from form.

Enter Ed Buchanan who has the makings of a series detective, a former cop, a former race car driver, but he lacks drive. He’s a half-hearted detective at best, not sure there really is a mystery despite some odd and suspicious circumstances. He seems more interested in pursuing Leo’s young employee than the mystery.



While well-written in terms of creating an environment that is so real we can almost feel the air, the cold rain, the wind, and wet, this book feels incomplete. Even the main character Ed feels as though the story is not done at the end. Ed does not so much solve the case as have it explained to him by one person and have the murder announce himself at the end. However, even though I roll my eyes at the villain explaining the conspiracy at the end in movies and books, I do think this killer had some explaining to do and didn’t.

Worse, the murderer was obvious at the first encounter. If you read mysteries fairly often, you recognize certain characteristics as ones that announce the murderer as loudly as royal heralds. They include the person who inserts him or herself into the investigation or the person with the perfect alibi or the person who is too helpful, too knowledgeable. Of course, recognizing the murderer didn’t ruin the story because I could have been wrong (I wasn’t.) and even knowing the identity of the killer not supply a motive. The why of the murders is the real mystery…and to be honest, that is not satisfactorily solved. There is a court card in this story and we can’t be sure it was found.

I received an e-galley of The End of the Web from the publisher through NetGalley.

The End of the Web at Poisoned Pen Press
George Sims obituary in The Independent

Beware the spider! 5 stars

Leo Selver's marriage has never been the same since his young son died, and he has taken to having a string of short affairs. When we meet him he is just about to embark on a new one, with a beautiful young woman called Judy Latimer. But Leo is worried about some business deal he seems to be involved in with a man he doesn't really trust. Soon things are going to turn nasty – very nasty – for Leo and his business partner. And it will be up to Ed Buchanan, former policeman and old family friend, to try to work out what's going on before things get even nastier...

This may be one of the vaguest little intros I've ever written and that's quite intentional. One of the things I've noticed most since I've being reading some of these older crime novels is that authors were far more willing to mess with the reader's expectations and play with structure than we tend to think. This book is a prime example of that. The beginning follows a fairly conventional pattern for a thriller – ordinary man caught up in a situation that brings him into danger – and it looks as though it will go on in the traditional way, with him struggling to extricate himself from the mess he's in. But then the author turns it on its head, and the book suddenly veers off in an entirely unexpected direction. I was taken aback, I must admit, but it works well, lifting this out of standard thriller territory into something a little more original.

Published in 1976, the book is set only a few years earlier in 1973, mostly in London though with trips out to the countryside and also over to Amsterdam. As with most thrillers (back in those happy far-off days, before turgid soggy middles and endless angst became obligatory), it goes at a cracking pace but, despite this, the author creates a good feel for the time period through references to some of the music and clothes, etc., and his sense of place is just as good.

The characterisation is also very good, achieved with an admirable brevity of description. Leo isn't exactly likeable, especially to a modern (female) audience who might feel that he should have spent a bit more time thinking about his wife's feelings rather than indulging in sad, middle-aged fantasies about young women, but his grief over the death of his son is real and makes it possible for the reader to sympathise. He's no hero, as he discovered himself during the war, but when the chips are down he does his best.

Ed, who becomes the main character as the book progresses, is however an excellent hero! Ex-boxer, ex-policeman, all round nice guy with a bit of a romantic streak, he manages the tricky balancing act of being tough with the baddies but gentle and caring with the women in his life – not just his romantic interest, but with Leo's wife, whom he looks on almost as a surrogate mother. And remarkably for the period, he doesn't patronise them! It's a short thriller, but Sims still finds room for Ed to develop over time, so that in the course of the novel he gets to know himself better and make changes in the way he lives his life.

There's plenty of action and a plot that hints at what I discovered later from Martin Edwards' intro to be true – that Sims himself had connections to the code-breaking facility at Bletchley Park during the war. There are some seriously chilling moments and some touching ones, and a dash of humour from time to time to keep the thing from becoming too bleak. The writing is very good and the pace never falters. Bearing in mind that it's the '70s, Sims seems to be quite forward-thinking, managing to avoid the usual pitfalls of blatant sexism, etc., and he in fact paints a positive picture of the burgeoning multi-culturalism that was beginning to really take off in London at that period. All-in-all, I thoroughly enjoyed this, and will certainly look out for more from Sims. I hope the British Library will resurrect more of these thrillers – from this example, they'll be just as enjoyable as the mystery novels they've been re-issuing.

NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Poisoned Pen Press.

I was first skeptical about "The End of the Web," not sure if I wanted to read another book by the author after finishing another title, "The Last Best Friend," few weeks ago. My hesitation is caused by the fact that George Sims' writing is full of tedious, seemingly irrelevant details. I am glad I have given Sims another chance because "The End of the Web" is an intense crime story with an unexpected plot development about 1/3 along the way. The plot is and engaging . "The End of the Web" indeed is a refined, sophisticated and fast-paced read that delivers a good level of satisfaction in my opinion.

First published in 1976, "The End of the Web" is not at all THE exciting thriller if using current standards and expectations. George Sims' style and writing, though dated, however, well produce the multi-dimensional characters and acutely create the proper ambiance for the historical backdrop. A wordy piece of work, but the details are being put there with purposes. Even without the unexpected twists and turns, Sims successfully crafts a believable story with some chilling moments in "The End of the Web." His description of how spiders patiently weave their webs for trapping their preys, waiting for the victims to fall into their traps give me goosebumps when the culprit does his business of getting his enemies out of the way.

"The End of the Web" is a nice addition to the British Library Classic Thrillers published by Poisoned Pen Press. Thanks Netgallery and the publisher for a chance to review such a wonderful title.

The End of the Web (BL, first published 1976)
The Last Best Friend (BL, first published 1967)

The British Library’s initiative to bring twentieth-century crime fiction back into print (in association with Poisoned Pen press in the U.S.) has kick-started a large movement. In the UK, Martin Edwards introduces many of the books in the British Library Thrillers series. These two, he argues, are unusual in their dark plotting and darker characters. Well, yes, and The End of the Web is full of false starts, false trails, and unsolved deaths right to the last page. ‘Web’ here means a web of extreme-right figures brought together by a pro-Hitler aristocrat, and The Last Friend involves more Nazi sympathisers trying to cover up their looting at the end of the war. The books are characterized by central characters who just happen to get involved, rather in the vein of Eric Ambler, but littered with loose ends. Much of the early parts of The Last Best Friend are not much like crime fiction, because they concentrate on a Lothario, Balfour, who has left his wife for adventure, and only pulls himself together when he receives a telegram from a good friend begging for his advice about a terrible decision he must make. Balfour’s engagement with the friend and his decision changes his life. In fact, it changes more than one life.
The great strength of Sims’s writing is his ability to catch a character, and to write of that character so convincingly that the reader is quite likely to forget that there doesn’t seem to be a reason for him (it’s usually a him) to be there. Sims made a living as a bookseller, and was what one might call a Sunday author; his colleagues claimed to recognize versions of themselves in his books.

The twists in this book and wondering who-done-it kept me reading this story.

Leo Selver, a middle-aged antiques dealer, is stunned when the beautiful and desirable Judy Latimer shows an interest in him. Soon they are lying in each other's arms, unaware that this embrace will be their last.

Popular opinion suggests that Leo murdered the girl, a theory Leo's wife - well aware of her husband's infidelities - refuses to accept.

Ed Buchanan, a former policeman who has known the Selvers since childhood, agrees to clear Leo's name. Selver and his fellow antique dealers had uncovered a secret and it is up to Ed to find the person willing to kill in order to protect it.