A skirt, petticoat and ankle socks... (Last Seen Wearing - Hillary Waugh)

Member Name: ronniec

Product:	Last Seen Wearing - Hillary Waugh
Date:	23/03/01 (184 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fascinating and amusing insight into 1950s America; great interplay between the lead characters; comfortable writing style.

Disadvantages: Sudden and lame conclusion; tunnel visioned plot at times; or two very weak sections.

You know Fifties America? That small town just past Delaware, where everybody lives in wood-panelled houses in the 'burbs, the genial greengrocer doubles up as the doc at weekends, and the swarthy outsider who rides into town on his motorbike is convicted of every unsolved crime in the book in minutes? And you know how you've always thought that this town never really existed, that it was just a Hollywood exaggeration used to reassure America that it is the nicest place to live in the world? Well, it seems we were wrong all along. Fifties America really was like that, and Hillary Waugh's novel, Last Seen Wearing, gives you a fascinating insight into the people of this town.

The premise of the story is very simple. Written in 1952, Waugh's tale centres around a pretty young college student who mysteriously goes missing, and the ensuing police case which attempts to find her. The book jumps headfirst into action, with Lowell Mitchell enjoying approximately four pages of life before her untimely death sets the rest of the book up for the other characters to take over. Read today, fifty years and countless imitations on, it does seem a very unoriginal concept, but for the time it features a little daring writing and some interesting ideas.

It is a crime novel in the truest sense of the word, sticking resolutely to the police chase and the intricacies and dilemmas this throws up along the way. Last Seen Wearing, a title which is referred to on numerous occasions throughout the book, is a very old-fashioned novel, written when writers were writers and everyone else was stupid or black. Waugh uses conformist language which never explodes out of the pages at you, but does enough to get the job done. Of all the books I have read from this period, Waugh demonstrated the greatest mastery of the language of the time, flexing it on occasion to escape the tightly-bound expectations literate America had at the time.

Now re-badged as a cla
ssic, there is much to warrant this acclaim. Waugh creates two strong characters in the Bristol PD, and the interplay between these two creates much of the spark throughout the book. Chief Ford, a grizzled and long-serving cop whose cynical attitudes prove the source of most of the humour in the book, is a somewhat stereotypical character, but his role is played out very well and certain moments really encourage the reader to empathise with him. Although most of the book wears a tee-shirt saying "I was written in 1952" in big fluoro letters, Ford's appearances break many conventions of the time - in his style, speech and through the picture one forms of him. To compliment the central character, the ambitious cop Cameron is brought in and the rivalry between the two is terrific. The book is heavily weighted by the conversations between the two, so it is fortunate they are also its main strength.

If these two break the mould, the numerous other characters in the book merely serve to flesh out the story - witnesses, friends, family, all seem to have been built from a simple template and for me this was the most disappointing aspect of the book. Yet, in one way, it is also a strength as the insight these stereotypes give into the writing and culture of the time is enormous. The weaker portions of the book could have been lifted from Mr. Chulmundley-Warner's School of How To Make Someone Sound Old-Fashioned, but it is morbidly amusing seeing the attitudes of the time.

The examples are numerous, from the antiquated attitudes towards women - girls not being allowed to wear jeans off campus; girls expected to receive male attention gratefully and obligingly; women not speaking while male visitors are in the house - to the comically inept policing methods of the time - reporters setting up camp in the police station, making use of a newspaper photographer to record a crime scene, and instantly presuming the "charming bachelor" mu
st be guilty all spring to mind. While definitely funny, it's also fascinating to see that not so long ago, people's lives really were like this. Last Seen Wearing is a terrific account of 1950s America and the culture that went with it, even if unintentionally so.

From a slow start, which you feel lingers too long establishing the background of the case to the detriment of the story itself, the plot gradually gathers pace until a lightning finale suddenly swoops down on you and ends the story. This is my other major criticism of the book - so long is spent poring over the police investigation that other areas of the book suffer and you feel Waugh felt pressured when he reached the three-hundredth page to round things off. Aside from Ford and Cameron, none of the other characters are looked at in great detail, which feels like tunnel vision as every section heads back to the Chief after so long. While this in itself is not a problem at all, it does become mildly irritating when other characters that you feel could have really benefited the book, are pushed aside after contributing their little clue. Most irritatingly of all, the eventual conclusion will leave you mightily disappointed as it springs up from nowhere like a Jack in the box. Without wishing to spoil the story - it wasn't the charming bachelor.

Waugh's style is quite formal yet simple to read. It lacks that something that makes you want to finish it all in one go, but does pull you back for a chapter or two every now and then. The quickening pace means the book generally improves towards the end, when the case begins to come together. Interesting more for the insight into the times than the actual plot, Last Seen Wearing is a recommended read, although most will prefer the more sophisticated writing of modern authors to Waugh's antiquated style.

Last Seen Wearing is available from Amazon for £4.79 as part of the Pan Classic Crime series.

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