Review: The Lolita Man (1986) by Bill James

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This is the second of Bill James' Colin Harpur and Desmond Iles series and the first to call it a Harpur and Iles Mystery.   In the first, You'd Better Believe It,  Iles had a minor role but here he is a full-on participant.

Despite being over 30 years old The Lolita Man is still a good solid police procedural. If written today you'd see mobile phones and social media used prominently in the story but ultimately it would still come down to chance and, as Harpur describes it "doorstep detective work".

So far I am finding this a very good police procedural series that continues to hold its own over over the years.

As you probably figured out from the title, young girls are falling victim to a serial killer leaving them raped and dead. The story is told from three viewpoints: third person describing the action, first person diary entries by a fourteen year old girl being groomed by the Lolita Man, and first person from the Lolita Man's viewpoint.

The murders have occurred across police jurisdictions, Harpur's unnamed city and the county, which complicates the search for the killer. This is actually a subplot and I write a bit more on it later.

As the story begins, we learn that Harpur is having an affair with Ruth Avery, widow of a subordinate of Harpur's who died in the first book. to their dismay, it isn't the secret they hoped. I am looking forward to seeing how far they can take this is subsequent books.

The police in both jurisdictions are not having any success in their investigations. In between romantic trysts with Ruth, Harpur does the only thing he can think of, he tours schools and watches —is there anything out of the ordinary, is there a car not picking up any children; is there anyone standing and watching who doesn't seem to belong with the other parents picking up or meeting their child. During one of his prowls around the Ash Tree girls school, he notices a young girl walking home. Later it turn out she is the daughter of acquaintances and he begins to notice that she is acting oddly. She is being groomed by the Lolita Man who in turn has noticed Harpur's interest in the girl. Being that the Lolita Man is seriously disturbed, his assumption is that Harpur wants to or is having "sick sex" with the girl.

Harpur becomes obsessed with the safety of the girl, Jennifer who wants to be called Cheryl-Ann. In watching Cheryl-Ann he discovers something that makes him very uncomfortable: it is all too easy to sexualize young girls and perhaps disturbingly finding himself understanding the fascination of the Lolita Man for young girls. I think here that James is showing us one of the perils of police work, the danger that the pursuer can become like the pursued.

Harpur is already driven to find the killer but when Cheryl-Ann is taken the search takes an even greater toll on him. The police know that they have a limited window in which to find Cheryl-Ann alive and a hostile press and police politics just adds to the pressure.

As I mentioned above, the murders cross jurisdictions and this subplot becomes a savage look at police bureaucracy with Iles at the center. He does not want to share anything more that the minimum with the county. He wants to be the one to claim credit. Outwardly he is all smiles and cooperative but with Harpur it's "don't tell them anything you don't have to". James adds an interesting touch to the rivalry. The county police are dominated by Irish Catholics and the police are The Micks and the county is The Papal State. From the county's perspective, the city police force is The Lodge, being dominated by members of the Freemasons. Iles is afraid that success by the county will put a Mick in the position of chief in the city when the current chief retires.

Where Harpur is a dedicated copper wanting an end to the murders, Iles is a consummate politician, smooth and smiling on the outside but constantly looking for advantage even if it does hinder the investigation. He will even cut out his own men if he thinks they are not on his team.

To make sense of Iles you had to understand that he yearned to be responsible and good, and to be responsible and good, and to sound responsible and good. He had taken pains to learn all the right thoughts and had them word perfect.The trouble was that a kind of ravenous selfishness would now and then slink up on its belly and rip the throat of this intention.

 Iles is smart and has good policing instincts but his hatred for the county police is brutal and affects his approach to the investigation. Harpur, for his part, has to appease Iles while still getting the job done. Here you begin to see the animosity between Harpur and Iles emerging and it will be fun to see how their adversarial relationship and the resulting dynamic tension will develop in subsequent books. It probably doesn't help that Harpur isn't a Mason.

So I'm calling this a good read and I'm happy that I have nearly all the rest of the books waiting for me.

Keywords: police procedural, crime fiction, serial killer, detective fiction, British crime fiction