Leon Garfield's five early novels—Jack Holborn, Devil-in-the-Fog, Smith, Black Jack, and The Drummer Boy—established very clearly the kind of world we associate with Garfield's writing. Since then, he has continued to produce prolifically, but the sense of unity, the sense of direction, seems to have become dissipated. It is not just a question of wanting or expecting him to go on writing as he has done or to write about the same things as before. After all, one doesn't expect each of William Mayne's books, for example, to be the same—in fact, one is surprised and gratified that each new novel is different and unpredictable. Nor does Garfield's later work lack quality—The God Beneath the Sea, The Strange Affair of Adelaide Harris, and The Ghost Downstairs are as fine as anything he has written. But nevertheless, looking back at the work he has produced since The Drummer Boy, there is a slight nagging sense of disappointment as though Garfield has missed his footing or somehow stumbled from the path and only intermittently found it again. He seems to be turning round seeking new directions, not all of which lead to successful destinations.
The quintessential Garfield world of the early novels is most instantly recognisable in his subsequent short novels. Stories like The Boy and the Monkey, The Captain's Watch, and Lucifer Wilkins show the characteristic delight of playing with words and images and the creation of chirpy characters. The more recent Mirror, Mirror and The Lamplighter's Funeral, two of a projected twelve under the general heading of 'Garfield's Apprentices', mark a very definite return to the London of narrow streets and evocative names, of master craftsmen and beggared children—though perhaps the squalor is more readily revealed….
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