Five Roundabouts to Heaven

I picked that one in a bargain bin at a supermarket because of Le Carre's endorsement but wasn't expecting much. After about twenty pages, I was hooked and finished the book in a single session. While we are essentially told what has happened in the first chapters and while it is in many ways an archetypal mystery novel, the excellent writing that drives the clean (very little suspension of disbelief required) plot leaves enough open paths to keep the reader speculating about the multiple possible endings. This is an atemporal intrigue, deeply grounded in human psyche. Read it!

It's a real shame that this book is out of print. John Bingham was a classic mystery writer from the early 50s in the UK and he belongs in the ranks of the best of breed. Five Roundabouts is his second novel.The book has much of the dark moodiness and imperfect characters that you'd find in a book by someone like Patricia Highsmith. You won't find the stock sympathetic characters here. Roundabout's characters commit adultery, lie to each other, mock their friends, and contemplate murder. The reader looking for someone to cheer for will be rather hard put in this instance.Definitely not typical escapist detective fiction, and all the better for it, IMO.