''Duffy'' is a novel by

Julian Barnes Julian Patrick Barnes (born 19 January 1946) is an English writer. He won the Man Booker Prize in 2011 with ''The Sense of an Ending'', having been shortlisted three times previously with '' Flaubert's Parrot'', '' England, England'', and ''Art ...

writing under the pseudonym of Dan Kavanagh. Barnes published the novel the year after he married the literary agent Pat Kavanagh, to whom he dedicated the book. It is the first of a four-novel series featuring the title character Duffy, a bisexual private detective and ex-policeman with a 'phobia of ticking watches and a penchant for

Tupperware Tupperware is an American home products line that includes preparation, storage, and serving products for the kitchen and home. In 1942, Earl Tupper developed his first bell-shaped container; the brand products were introduced to the public in 1 ...

'. Originally published by

Jonathan Cape Jonathan Cape is a London publishing firm founded in 1921 by Herbert Jonathan Cape, who was head of the firm until his death in 1960. Cape and his business partner Wren Howard set up the publishing house in 1921. They established a reputation ...

in 1980, it was republished by Orion books in 2014.

Plot introduction

In the quiet

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant ur ...

village of

West Byfleet West Byfleet is a village in Surrey which grew up around its relatively minor stop on the London & South Western Railway: the station, originally ''Byfleet and Woodham'', opened in 1887. More than from the medieval village of Byfleet, the i ...

two masked men break into Brian McKechnie's house, cut his wife and

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his cat. This leads to blackmail and McKechnie goes to the local police but finds them strangely uninterested and so he hires Duffy to investigate. The investigator uses his contacts in the seedy

Soho Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was deve ...

underworld to identify those responsible and finds they have links to his ex-colleagues in the police, and to his own dismissal from their ranks four years earlier after being set-up for underage homosexual sex.

Reception

John Sutherland in the ''

London Review of Books The ''London Review of Books'' (''LRB'') is a British literary magazine published twice monthly that features articles and essays on fiction and non-fiction subjects, which are usually structured as book reviews. History The ''London Review o ...

'' writes, "Duffy’s principal attraction is a kind of voyeurism on voyeurism, as the hero investigates the square mile’s ‘saunas’, peepshows and sex shops. The report which the novel offers as to what goes on in these establishments is given in a callously brutal and tasteless rhetoric"John Sutherland reviews ‘Duffy’ by Dan Kavanagh, ‘Moscow Gold’ by John Salisbury, ‘The Middle Ground’ by Margaret Drabble and ‘The Boy Who Followed Ripley’ by Patricia Highsmith · LRB 17 July 1980
Retrieved 2019-05-03.

External links

*
Julian Barnes's pseudonymous detective novels stay under cover , Books , ''The Guardian''

References

Novels by Julian Barnes 1980 British novels 1980s LGBT novels Hardboiled crime novels British detective novels Jonathan Cape books Novels set in London Male bisexuality in fiction Works published under a pseudonym Novels with bisexual themes British LGBT novels {{1980s-crime-novel-stub