Plenty Under The Counter by Kathleen Hewitt

My Review:

Plenty Under The Counter is a novel that stands the test of time and I can't believe I had never come across it before but am thrilled that I have discovered it, and Kathleen Hewitt, now. It's one of four classics reissued by the Imperial War Museum and I can easily see why.

In Plenty Under The Counter the reader is immediately catapulted back in time to London, during World War II,  and also into the middle of an intriguing murder mystery. The protagonist and amateur sleuth, Flight Lieutenant David Heron is recuperating at Mrs Meake's lodging house and awakes to find that a man has been found stabbed in the back in the garden during the night. It was a salient reminder that life, and death, continue with some normality even during the war. Hewlitt shows how the war also brought new crimes to civilain life with rationing creating a thriving blackmarket that even the most patriotic and virtuous could be tempted by. Hewitt expertly highlights the dilemma of self gratification versus the greater good in war time.

London during the war, and importantly the blackout, is an alien world to the modern reader when London is never fully dark and technology gives the police a helping hand as suspects can be easily located through both CCTV and their phones. Heron attempts to solve a crime with no witnesses and and an unnamed victim and I salivated at the simplicity of it. Heron relies on his brain and the help of his girlfriend Tess and close friend Bob and its so enjoyable and refreshing to read something that relies primarily on the cerebral.

I loved the pace life was lived at in the novel, the threat of imminent death seemed to galvanise characters to act quickly be it plans to open a club or even get married. Hewitt has created a plethora of characters who are cleverly and gradually revealed to the reader. The setting of a lodging house allows Hewitt to have a stock of suspects that she exploits with skill and proves to the reader time and time again that we cannot take anything for granted, empty rooms are not necessarily empty and lies do not necessarily equate to the guilt of a murder. Hewitt leads the reader into a false sense of certainty where we think characters are just as they appear but which means the denouement is shocking but makes so much sense in hindsight. It's a sign of a great novel when you close the book and then sit and reflect upon what you've read and Plenty Under The Counter is such a one.

Finally it is bittersweet in our present political climate when Bob Carter who wants to start a club for all of the Allies to enjoy and opines: 'Can you imagine twenty-six nations agreeing to the same conclusions at the same moment.' One can't help but feel that Hewlitt presciently seems to be summing up the ethos of the European Union.

Thank you to Anne Cater for inviting me to be part of this tour.