I would like to thank Joanne and B7Media for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher - B7Media

Published - Out Now

Price - £8.99 paperback £5.59 Kindle eBook

First published in 1957 The Strange Case of Mr Pelham is Anthony Armstrong’s masterclass in suspense, a slow-burning examination of one man’s descent into paranoia.
Filmed several times for television in both the UK for the BBC, and in the US as an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Armstrong’s Pelham eventually hit the big screen in 1970 as the movie The Man Who Haunted Himself, starring Roger Moore.
Reissued here for the first time in more than half a century, this classic period piece is set to bring one of the great 20th century thriller writers to a new generation of admirers.

The evil double is a long-standing trope. It a little out of the myth of the doppelganger and changeling but we see examples now in culture from Star Trek to Coraline. The idea of someone taking our identity is something we know could hit us financially but imagine someone insinuating themselves into our own lives taking over - our loss of self is a key fear of being human. In Anthony Armstrong’s 1957 novel The Strange Case of Mr Pelham we get a glimpse of an early exploration of this idea but unfortunately this is an example where later attempts did the job even better.

Mr Pelham is first met by a young couple noticing this quiet unassuming man having a wild time gambling in a casino. He is a mystery in the business world moving from quiet but dull to making a killing in many business areas and having now a murkier reputation. We then jump back in time to discover what led to this transformation. This quiet, predictable middle aged man well known for being nice, shy and a creature of habit starts to find his friends and acquaintances reporting they saw him in places they know he was not; slowly he becomes aware of someone impersonating him at his club; his workplace and even sometimes his home. A game is being played with Mr Pelham and it has sinister repercussions for the man and those around him.

This unfortunately did not work very well for me as a novel despite the start setting up an intriguing mystery. The time jump promises some secrets and the initial set up really works. Tiny strange moments that when you put them together show someone is messing Mr Pelham around. We get to feel for the innocent Pelham who just wants to be good and nice and finds his calm ordered life being messed around increasingly. Unfortunately this story hasn’t got enough fuel for a novel. Armstrong stays too long in the small discrepancies that you realise this is more padding than plotting. There are only so many scenes of Pelham just missing his double at a location and finding out what has happened that you can handle before patience wears thin. Very little sense of escalation is made until the final scenes and sudden unexplainable denouement. It just falls flat midway and even by the end the time jump doesn’t really deliver anything either bar some weak foreboding.

There are some interesting glimpses of post war London life. Where middle class business men had evening clubs, manservants and women were expected to leave their job once married but its not particularly dwelled upon as social commentary. Lilly the only main female character is more plot device too than has a part to play. Ultimately this story feels a curio that would have been better served as a tight novella to be more effective. I can see why its been adapted as the idea is good but Armstrong’s prose doesn’t deliver any verve or visual impact so future drama makers have a lot of leeway. Sadly disappointing!