29. The Floating Dutchman by Nicolas Bentley

I took this purely on aesthetics and the joy at finding a small vein of British 50s and 60s paperbacks at the Rennaissance on St-Denis.  I love the colours of the photo cover, though the image is a bit indistinguishable. It is relevant to the story though I don't think the pouch of stolen jewels ever actually sits in a pool of blood.

Unfortunately, the book itself wasn't so great.  One definitely could (and did) put it down.  There is nothing straight-up bad about it, au contraire, it is very competently written, the characters and situation all feel very real.  It's just super dry and almost anthropological in its look at a narrow slice of crime in 50s London.  The emphasis of the storylines are unevenly distributed as well, so you aren't really sure who is the main character and about whom we are supposed to care.

It takes place around a bar that is run by Victor, a career criminal with a heroic military past in Italy.  He's never been caught and as we learn is involved in a scheme to steal jewels from wealthy people's homes while they are out eating at a restaurant (Victor is in cahoots with the head waiter).  The ostensible other protagonist is Alexander, an undercover cop getting in good with Victor to trace and find proof of his selling the stolen jewels.  We also have a young hostess working at the bar who is of course too beautiful for such a place but there to watch her reefer-addicted brother who plays in the house band.   Marijuana is treated like heroin in this book.

It's quite procedural and detailed but all kind of dull (though an escape from a surrounded luxury apartment building at the end by Victor's right-hand man was quite cool in its detail).  The ending is supposed to be an ironic twist but you don't really get enough of the characters' relationships for it to register.