David Stoddart is a well-respected town councillor with a troubling thrill addiction. By day, he’s a successful businessman and pillar of local society. But as darkness falls, Stoddart slips out of his house to prowl the streets of The Old Town, committing burglaries to feed his need and fund his other obsession – gambling. Soon he’s seeking out larger prizes that require a team of accomplices, only to discover that the more people who know his secret, the greater the danger.
The ‘gentlemen thief’ is a familiar character in crime fiction. But there is an undercurrent of violence and mania in Kerr-Smiley’s portrait of Stoddart that distances him from an Arséne Lupin. In the opening chapter, he’s caught in the act of housebreaking by a ‘frail’ old man in a nightshirt and cap, holding a flintlock in his shaking hands. Stoddart doesn’t think twice about clubbing him unconscious with a metal jemmy.
His debts mount as his gambling grows ever more reckless. Perhaps he needs a reason to continue stealing, as he becomes consumed by his night-time activities and alter ego. Increasingly, we see that Stoddart is less Raffles, more Mr. Hyde. When he finally takes one risk too many, he is forced to flee Edinburgh to avoid capture. So begins the second part of his story, as he struggles to evade the Procurator Fiscal’s men in hot pursuit.
A Leap in the Dark is not a long read but packs plenty of action into its two hundred pages. Intricacies of plot are set aside to ensure events move rapidly, and the author limits himself to building just two distinctive characters, Stoddart and ‘Auld Reekie’ – the Old Town of Edinburgh itself with its pervasive social hierarchies. The sense of place and atmosphere are finely drawn, reinforced by the use of local dialect in the direct speech of the gang members and lower orders. Dialect can be a distraction and irritation for readers, but Kerr-Smiley applies it judiciously. It does not impair comprehension of the story and reinforces the divide between his two worlds.
On the run, Stoddart has to leave his wife and child in Edinburgh. This allows Kerr-Smiley to burden our villain still further with unfamiliar and destructive guilt. The impact of this would have been magnified if his wife, and his relationship with her, had been fleshed out a little more, earlier in the book. As it is, it’s not easy to feel why the loss of this relatively sketchy figure would have caused great pain to such a selfish and self-indulgent man.
That aside, A Leap in the Dark is a highly-readable tale, which will suit readers who like plenty of action, set in convincing and atmospheric historical settings. It’s a world of dangerous men and desperate deeds. In the words of one of Stoddart’s victims:
“Stay your hand, ye thievin’ chiel! Daurna move, or I’ll shoot!”
Michael Ward is the author of the Thomas Tallant mysteries, based in 17th century London. The latest, Drums of War, is published by Sharpe Books.
