First, an update on my car. The part arrived. They tried to put it in. It turned out to be defective. They’ll order another. Estimated time window: about a month.

You probably won’t be surprised by now to know that I wasn’t surprised at all by this. I was expecting it to be the wrong part, but otherwise this was the scenario I fully anticipated.

Anyway, on to my book review. The Man By the Sea by Jack Benton.

John “Slim” Hardy is a private eye in Lancashire, England. He is a failed soldier and a serious alcoholic. He’s been hired by a woman to follow her husband, whom she suspects of having an affair.

He’s not having an affair. Slim has discovered that the man is going once a week to a secluded cove known for dangerous rip tides, where he stands reading out loud from a book. What he’s reading, Slim discovers (I forget how), is a Latin incantation to the dead.

Instead of reporting the good news to the wife and closing the case, Slim gets obsessed with the husband’s reasons for this behavior, and starts looking into his past, and into local history. Not neglecting to turn the situation fully ironic by having an affair with the wife.

If this summary sounds improbable, the rest of the book is even less plausible.

I don’t think I’ve ever read a novel so detached from genuine human motivations and behavior. At every juncture, the characters fail to do what a normal person would do, but instead act in some hysterical way. They respond operatically, or perhaps more aptly, soap-operatically.

And our hero is not just a maintenance alcoholic, like your run of the mill literary private eye. Slim Hardy is a full-fledged dipsomaniac, subject to black-outs and car accidents and completely out of control. He needs to be locked up for the protection of himself and others.

The story was sad, the narrative frustrating to read. I do not recommend The Man By the Sea.