Fred Fellows #01 - Sleep Long, My Love

In the non-fiction book Hillary Waugh's Guide to Mysteries & Mystery Writing, Waugh, a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master, focuses the tenth chapter on police-procedural writing and some of the catalysts that drove him to write some of the best novels of that sub-genre. He says he was influenced and deeply moved by Charles Boswell's They All Died Young, which he remembers reading in 1949. He refers to books by Ed McBain, John Creasey, Roger West and Maj Sjowall and how the business of moving toward the police instead of away from the police was a radical shift in the character of the mystery story. Waugh's recognition of the police procedural genre, and it's creation, elevated his writing to the upper echelons among his contemporaries. Nothing exemplifies that more than his Fred Fellows series. 

I read the second installment of Waugh's Fred Fellows series in 2019, a book called Road Block. I remember liking it, but felt that it was too much of a procedure instead of a compelling narrative. Even though I gave the book a less-than-stellar review, I've always kept Fred Fellows in mind when I've read other police procedural books. No matter how many books I read that Fred fella just kept returning. After halfheartedly searching for more of the Fred Fellows novels I finally found some. I wanted to try Fellows again from the beginning with the series debut Sleep Long, My Love. It was originally published in 1959 and was later adapted into a British film titled Jigsaw (Pan reissued the book under that name in 1962). 

Fred Fellows is the Chief of Police in the small fictitious city of  Stockton, Connecticut. Not much is known about his background or personal life other than he is married, has a couple of sons, and only drinks his coffee with sugar and milk. His police force includes about 20 officers, of which the key characters being Fellows' right-hand man, Detective Sergeant Sidney Wilkes, as well as Sergeants Unger and Gorman. Fellows and his force sometimes work with the nearest big city, Bridgeport. 

In Sleep Long, My Love, Fellows and Wilkes investigate a possible tenant skipping out on a rental house lease. Upon investigation they discover body parts that were morbidly charred in the furnace as well as a human torso stuffed into a trunk. There are scummy blood stains in the bathtub and the remnants of a hacksaw and knife in the ashes of the fireplace. This is a 1959 novel that appears to be very modern based on the disturbing crime scene. The questions are two-fold: Who is the killer and who is the victim? That's the investigation that haunts the two men and the entire town of Stockton.

I've read my share of these procedural stories and I feel comfortable being thrust into the investigation. By having very little knowledge beyond what the police possess I was knee-deep in analyzing clues, evidence, suspects, and motive. The interesting part of the story is that there are two major mysteries here, who was killed and who's the killer. By having very little information the investigation has to comb a lot of streets, towns, and occupations to gather information. As tiny clues are presented the detective work eliminates them. Often I was left with at a dead end just like Fellows. Who was this girl? Why was she killed? The mystery was just so compelling and the various leads seemed so promising. 

This may be one of the better police procedural novels I've ever read. I love the Fellows and Wilkes characters and their system of bouncing ideas off of each other. Wilkes is the second-guess type and Fellows is a bit more diligent in never dismissing any little thread of detail. I couldn't put the book down and read it nearly in one sitting. After completion I thought more about why I didn't like the second installment, Road Block, as much. That novel is based on traffic and patterns of traffic after a heist places robbers somewhere on the real-life Merritt Parkway in Connecticut. I just found the “road work” dull and uninspiring where Sleep Long, My Love is a totally different type of narrative. If you love police procedural novels then look no further than this one. High recommendation. 

Buy a copy of the book HERE