SS Wobble

a to Death

i e ee A Classic Novel Uncovered: Murder at a Six-Day Race: Part |

by Peter Lovesey

Editor’s Note—There are precious few novels with running as a backdrop, much less ultrarunning—much less ultrarunning in the 19th century! Yet in 1970 a Head of Department at Hammersmith and West London College, Peter Lovesey, penned a first novel featuring several of his favorite interests: Victorian England, the sporting scene, and crime. He wrote Wobble to Death, set in the smoky sporting halls of 1879 where go-as-you-please six-day races were all the rage and where death—not from overindulging in forward movement but by foul means—was part of the program.

Wobble to Death introduced the redoubtable Detective Sergeant Cribb, and the book won Lovesey the Macmillan/Panther First Crime Novel award the year it was published. Granada Television made a film of Wobble to Death, starring Alan Dobie as Sergeant Cribb. Lovesey continued to write novels featuring Sergeant Cribb to the point where, in 1975, he gave up his teaching duties and dedicated his talents to writing full-time.

Long out of print, Lovesey’s book was brought to our attention by ultrarunning legend and M&B subscriber Ruth Anderson, who lists the book among her favorite crime novels. A large print edition was issued in 1999.

Arrangements to publish Wobble to Death for a new army of potential Sergeant Cribb fans were made by Felony & Mayhem Press, and the book is now available in paperback and hardcover.—R. Benyo

EXCERPT FROM WOBBLE TO DEATH

From Chapter 4

SERGEANT CRIBB TOOK THE STAIRS to the first floor two at a time, with less discomfort than might be expected from a man of forty-three, and found the gaunt frame of Doctor Tumilty stretched across the bed with less grace than any patient had a right to demand.

“You wanted to see me, sir?”

The doctor got up. “Yes. I want to make a statement. I am convinced that the death of Widdop was murder, deliberate murder.”

“Murder!”

“Murder. I can assure you, Sergeant. I’ve examined the body professionally. That man died from a poison, something I cannot identify, but a poison all the same. The symptoms are consistent with nothing else.”

Cribb felt his blood pressure rise. All week, security men and sporting journalists had assured him that Widdop had dropped from natural causes. A six-day race, they explained, imposed intolerable strains on the human body. Men weakened by days of almost continuous movement would simply keelpover. Some of them survived; some didn’t. It was all expected, all above-board, all respectable.

“Can you give me any evidence?”

“The discoloration of the face. The excessive salivation. The condition of the pupils.”

“They could be induced by fatigue, doctor?”

“Not to this degree, Sergeant. The man was poisoned. It is not a case for the sports columnist.”

Cribb touched his tie, a gesture that served him in place of systematic thought.”

Continue Reading… in the pages of Marathon & Beyond

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