Five Roundabout to Heaven is a multi-level mystery narrated by one of the story's participants, Peter Harding, as he returns to the house in the south of France where he and a group of young people from all over Europe spent a summer in the 1930s. It is where he first fell in love and where he met Philip Bartels, a man that would become his best friend.
Philip Bartels
Harding and Bartels rekindle their friendship decades later in London, where Bartels is trapped in a loveless but solid marriage to Beatrice, another of the French summerhouse inhabitants. Bartels, a homely man by Harding's account, has fallen in long with another, the younger and lovely, Lorna Dickson.
Planning a Murder
Bartels, described as a man incapable of killing a spider, is distraught at the prospect of telling Beatrice that he wants a divorce. Somehow in his mind, he convinces himself that the kindest thing to do is to poison her. The rest of the novel deals with his planning this crime. Yet, few things are so easy, as Five Roundabouts helps to illustrate.
That this series of novels is not generally known is extraordinary. The tight writing, solid characters, and intricate yet understandable plot rank with the best of the genre. Bingham never uses two words where one will suffice. Nor does he pad the story with unneccesary details. Reading Five Roundabouts to Heaven was like discovering an old friend.
About John Bingham
Unlike his protegee, John Le Carre, relatively little is written about John Bingham. A Google search will tell you about a runner and an Ohio politician of that name, but not this author. Presumably, that speaks well of a successful MI5 agent. According to the Simon & Schuster biography, Mr. Bingham (AKA Lord Clanmorris, AKA Michael Ward) was a British intelligence officer for over 30 years. In addition, he published over 15 crime and mystery novels. Mr. Bingham died in 1988.
John Le Carre on Bingham
In his foreward to this novel, John Le Carre tells readers that it was Bingham, his boss during the early part of his own MI5 career, that inspired his character, George Smiley. For anyone that has read the extraordinary spy novels featuring that character, you will know that Smiley has a complex character, known for being unknowable and non-descript, yet able to match wits with the world's best and most deceptive minds.
Le Carre also shares that it was his writing about the service that caused an unrepairable rift between the two men, a rift that was never mended. According to Le Carre, Bingham disapproved strongly of Le Carre's even appearing to expose secrets of the agency. Even if you never read a foreward, read this one.
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