Here is another stand-alone police procedural that Gilbert published in 1972. It's very satisfying and has that modern twist of the story being told from a not completely transparent character's point of view. The story begins in a small village located in the "upper reaches" of the Thames River when a couple of boys swimming and playing around in a wooded area of an island in the river see a leg of a person sticking out of the mud near the water's edge. They run to get the police much to the chagrin of the police chief who is ONE MONTH away from a not-so-well deserved retirement. (Let's just say this guy likes to ignore crimes that make his life difficult.) To everyone's amazement (and the police chief's great relief) the next day a Detective Chief Inspector Mercer of the Scotland Yard arrives to take over the case. Not that the locals had actually done anything. Indeed, they are sort of amazed that Scotland Yard had even heard of the case...Regardless, Mercer is assigned a small team of detectives who are eager to do something--and eager to blame Scotland Yard if it all blows up in their faces. Because it turns out that the body has been dead over two years, there is no missing person report that remotely resembles the (it is inferred) young adult female, and any clues (like clothes, shoes, wallet) are LONG gone.
Mercer is in exhaustible and not only sets up a police cordon around the area where the body was found and then orders police officers to start digging up the whole island in case there are more bodies. Not only does Mercer explain to no one what he is up to, he spends a lot of his efforts asking people about local characters who clearly have NOTHING to do with this murder: a guy who owns the only successful garage in town, the half-hobo/half-conman who lives in a hut on the island and sells "girly pics" to teen boys--a seedy but beloved piece of local color, and anyone who worked with or knew a police officer who killed himself over a year ago...Well, it doesn't take long before Mercer has no friends on the force and few friends in town. And it doesn't take long before the Police Chief, Bob Clark to complain to everyone who will hear about how Mercer is messing things up. And soon the talk is that Mercer is not only messing things up but perhaps criminal himself.
So what is Mercer's story? Well, even though he is the main character and we (the reader) move through the world with him, he does not share his innermost thoughts with us. His past is a completely blank book--we know nothing of him other than the fact that he states he is a detective with Scotland Yard. We have no idea why he tells the police officers to keep a 24 hour watch on a local garage owner. We have no idea why he hangs out at a bar after closing time and pretends to get drunk with the people who hang out there.
I won't give away the big reveal, but after spending almost 200 pages looking over Mercer's shoulder (but having no access to his thoughts), his workmates' suspicions of him start to make sense. Is he intentionally sabatoging the whole investigation? You'll have to read it yourself to find out.
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