Dangerous Davies: The Last Detective by Leslie Thomas

This is a strange book about a strange policeman, but in the end I liked it very much. I was motivated to read the book because I was about to begin watching the TV series based on the Dangerous Davies books. Serendipitously,  I ran into the book at my local independent bookstore at just the right time.

This is the first chapter of the book:

This is the story of a man who became deeply concerned with the unsolved murder of a young girl, committed twenty-five years before. 

He was a drunk, lost, laughed at and frequently baffled; poor attributes for a detective. But he was patient too, and dogged. He was called Dangerous Davies (because he was said to be harmless) and was known in the London police as “The Last Detective” since he was never dispatched on any assignment unless it was very risky or there was no one else to send.

Dangerous Davies: The Last Detective was published in 1976 and set at that time. Davies is assigned the case of finding Cecil Ramscar, a criminal who had escaped the country, living in Australia and America at times, but is now back in his old stomping grounds. It isn't a big case, they just want to find Ramscar and keep an eye on him, so Davies does not take the assignment too seriously. But he discovers an unsolved case from twenty five years earlier that is mentioned in the file on Ramscar and he gets very serious about tracking down the truth behind the disappearance of a 17-year-old girl, Celia Norris

Davies is an alcoholic, and a real bumbling detective. He pursues the cold case doggedly, but a lot of what gets done happens accidentally. I was wary of reading a book about a detective who succeeds in spite of himself, but overall it worked for me. I think the key is that Davies is a genuinely kind and generous person. People may laugh at him, but he gains trust from people easily, which helps in gathering information. It is very believable in the end that with his determination, persistence, and decency, he does solve the case.

A description in the book:

Davies, a long man, thirty-three years old, inhabited his tall brown overcoat for the entire London winter and well into the spring. By the first frosts he was resident again. 

He was to be seen at the wheel of his 1937 Lagonda Tourer, forever open and exposed to the weather, the hood having been jammed like a fixed backward grin since 1940.

This is a humorous novel with some very colorful characters; Davies lives in a boarding house, where his best friend Mod also has a room. His wife also lives there but they are in different rooms. As far as I can remember this is never explained and there seems to be little affection between them. Davies' dog is large, old and cranky, and lives in the back seat of his car. But the best characterizations are those of Celia Norris's family and the various witnesses from the cold case who are interviewed by Davies.

After reading the book, I did watch the pilot for The Last Detective, the TV series starring Peter Davison as Dangerous Davies. The TV series was first run in 2003,  and it brings Dangerous Davies into the 21st century. The detective is still bumbling and not very competent as a policeman, but his flaws are not so evident as in the book. And the dog doesn't live in the car. The pilot episode is based on this book. The plot is very similar, although with some changes to the solution (which I approve of because it makes it more interesting to watch).  I plan to continue watching the series.

Please see Sergio's excellent post on both the book and the TV series at Tipping My Fedora.

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Publisher:   Felony & Mayhem, 2011 (orig. pub. 1976)
Length:      272 pages
Format:      Trade paperback
Series:       Dangerous Davies #1
Setting:      UK
Genre:       Police procedural (loosely)
Source:      I purchased my copy.