Even headline-grabbing revelations about the rape and sexual abuse he suffered at Shrewsbury school come swaddled in that familiar protective layer of gentle wit acquired from his close reading of James Thurber and P G Wodehouse. Then, on page 165, Peel's younger self is left standing on the threshold of a Mexican brothel by his autobiographer's untimely passing. But while there's something undeniably appealing about the idea of Peel reaching out from beyond the grave to wipe away the thick layer of bullshit with which his legacy is becoming encrusted, a post-deathbed conversion to unadorned truth-telling would have ultimately represented a betrayal of everything he held dear.This was, after all, the man who began his showbiz career pretending to be a friend of the Beatles in order to further his sexual education at the hands - and other parts - of semi-innocent Texan high-school girls, and ended it as Radio 4's cosy custodian of the pleasures of the domestic hearth. "I prefer to remember those who have died in their proper context," he wrote, "filling some greater or lesser niche in everyday life, rather then distorting my memory of them in a welter of terminal sentiment." Many aspects of the glut of multi-media hagiography which has followed Peel's passing have inclined one to think "Amen to that." Not least the determination of the very Radio 1 bosses who'd been itching to get rid of him for years to establish themselves as keepers of his eternal flame.
When he's brought in to defend the company charged with negligence regarding the security of the wrecked train, he discovers that he's in the middle of not one, but two, conspiracies. Dark Harbour is a real goodie, twisting and turning like a cat on a hot stove Top stuff!. Of all the people I have ever interviewed - in fact, ever met - John Peel (n?avenscroft) was the man whose fear of death was closest to the surface in everyday conversation. And if the much-loved DJ could have known that one consequence of his own sadly premature demise would be to make The Undertones' "Teenage Kicks" the new "Candle in the Wind", this apprehensiveness would no doubt have intensified. In the midst of the large part of Margrave of the Marshes which was completed after her husband's death, Sheila Ravenscroft quotes a 1977 diary entry, in which Peel responds to criticism of his refusal to make more fuss on air about the death of Elvis Presley. A conspiracy theorist's must-have. Dark Harbour by David Hosp (SIMON & SCHUSTER £12.99)Two cases collide on the fourth anniversary of 9/11 when a commuter train en route from Boston to New York City is wrecked by a terrorist bomb and the seventh and latest victim in a series of particularly gruesome murders is discovered in Boston.
The seven were all young women and their hearts have been removed from their bodies, some prior to death, and the evidence suggests there is more than one killer involved. The lead cops start to lean on Boston's organised crime bosses, and suddenly there's big bucks on the street to bring in the murderers dead or alive, but preferably dead. However, it's a young cop on his first big undercover, who, by accident, discovers a suspect for the murders. But a lawyer named Scott T Finn, a street boy himself and personally involved with the only victim who was not a prostitute, begins to smell a rat.
