It’s Different Abroad by Henry Calvin
Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)
This delightful suspense novel from 1963 stars Helen McLeish, a Scottish spinster, in Normandy in her snazzy red Mini. She is on a well-deserved vacation after burying her tetchy invalid father whom she tended for ten long years. After she is passed through French customs she gets the feeling that she is being followed. After she meets her sister and brother-in-law at their vacation house, she takes her niece and nephew to a beach where she has a nasty encounter with one of the stalkers. Happily, she also meets a local mechanic, the hero and love interest of the story, and they have an adventure together.
The McGuffin is rather so-so, but the draws are the brisk pace, ingenious plot twists, and the realistic interplay between characters. A vein of satire animates the observations of a certain kind of Briton overseas to whom all non-Britons are foreigners whether or not they are in their own country. Helen’s sister and brother-in-law are muggles of the worst sort. Her sister Rosemary is judgmental, self-righteous, and materialistic. The brother-in-law is a fast-talking lech, main chancer, and weakling. Both are kinda sorta parents, with the main damage being done to their 10-year-old son, an acting-out bully, coward and snot. The author’s ridicule is not heavy handed and jabs in the direction of philistines are fun.
Henry Calvin was the pen name of Clifford Hanley (1922 – 1999), a journalist, novelist, playwright and script writer from Glasgow.
