Helga’s Web is the second book in the Scobie Malone series following The High Commissioner in which Detective Sergeant Scobie Malone of the New South Wales Police Force was first introduced to us. Although it is the second of the series, it is the first case that he works on his home turf of Sydney. Consequently we learn a lot more about Malone, his family and colleagues and his relationship with them all than we did before during the course of his investigation.
The year is 1970 and, at the time, the biggest event taking place in the city of Sydney (as well as the most opinion-polarising) was the construction of the Sydney Opera House. It's not surprising then that Jon Cleary has integrated the Opera House into the story by placing the discovery of a woman’s body in the construction site. It’s Scobie Malone and his partner Russ Clements who are called out to investigate.
From this point on the focus of the story begins to alternate between Malone’s investigation in the present and the events of the days leading up to the woman’s body’s discovery. At first I was a little confused by the changing timeframes but can only put that down to my own inattention because Cleary begins each chapter with a dateline making it obvious which storyline is about to follow.
When we are taken back a couple of weeks we meet Helga Brand, a beautiful woman who is carrying on affairs with at least 2 men. The first man is Jack Savanna, the owner of a battling film production company and the second is State Parliamentarian, the Minister for Cultural Development, Walter Helidon.
Helga has come up with a coldly measured plan to blackmail these two men threatening to reveal the nature of her relationship with each of them unless she is handsomely paid off. Obviously, back when this was written and published the prospect of a sex scandal held a lot more meaning to people than it does today, giving this storyline the credence that it probably wouldn't get today.
Where Helga's careful plan begins to break down is in the people affected by her attempted extortion. The web of people she has drawn together lies a lot more widely than she had bargained for and, rather than breaking apart they pull together and support each other. Somewhere along the line this support network has organized itself enough to result it Helga's death. The question that Scobie must answer is who, out of the chain of people involved, killed Helga Brand?
Jon Cleary has written a fascinating murder mystery here combining the two time periods to reveal a little of what actually happened and then jumping forward to check how well Scobie is progressing, given what we have just learnt. Pleasingly, the identity of the murderer isn’t made obvious until quite late in the book, giving you a chance to have a go at trying to solve it yourself.
We are given a much greater insight into Scobie's background in Helga's Web than we did in The High Commissioner. An amusing little ongoing aside comes in the form of the shame and humiliation felt by Scobie’s parents owing to his job as a policeman. They live in the lower-class suburb of Erskineville where the police have always been considered the enemies, branded as “demons”, and they’re not going to change their opinions just because their foolish son has become one. Meanwhile, Scobie’s relationship with Lisa, whom he met in The High Commissioner, continues to flourish and develops Scobie’s character from merely being a police officer to a caring, extremely likable person.
Once I had gotten used to jumping backwards and forwards in time I appreciated the style used by Cleary. I found that it not only added to the tension of the story (knowing Helga was going to be murdered), but also focused my attention on each of the suspects as they came and went in her life (trying to figure out who the murderer was).
The Scobie Malone series is a little dated, especially some of the attitudes toward women, but the investigation work and the presentation of the mystery is still compelling. Hardly heavy reading, Helga’s Web is an enjoyable police procedural featuring a protagonist who has me in his corner cheering.
More Scobie Malone books to try:
The High Commissioner (1966)
Helga’s Web (1970)
Ransom (1973)
Dragon’s At the Party (1987)
Now and Then, Amen (1988)
Babylon South (1989) (1989)
Murder Song (1990)
Pride's Harvest (1991)
Dark Summer (1992)
Bleak Spring (1993)
Autumn Maze (1994)
Winter Chill (1995)
A Different Turf (1996)
Endpeace (1998)
Five-Ring Circus (1999)
Dilemma (2000)
The Bear Pit (2000)
Yesterday's Shadow (2001)
The Easy Sin (2002)
Degrees of Connection (2004)
Recommended:
Yes
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