Fiddle City - Misplaced Pages

1981 novel by Dan Kavanagh

This article contains unreferenced categories (Category:Hardboiled crime novels). Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced categories may be challenged and removed. (April 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Fiddle City
First edition
Author	Dan Kavanagh (pseudonym of Julian Barnes)
Language	English
Publisher	Jonathan Cape
Publication date	1 Oct 1981
Publication place	United Kingdom
Media type	Print
Pages	176
ISBN	0-224-01977-5
Preceded by	Duffy
Followed by	Putting the Boot In

Fiddle City is a novel by Julian Barnes writing under the pseudonym of Dan Kavanagh. It is the second of a four-novel series featuring Duffy, a bisexual private detective with a 'phobia of ticking watches and a penchant for Tupperware'. Originally published by Jonathan Cape in 1981, it was republished by Orion books in 2014.

Plot introduction

Heathrow Airport has the nickname of Fiddle City, but for Roy Kendrick who runs a transport business out of the airport, petty thievery has got out of hand as a number of shipments have gone astray and he employs Duffy to investigate. Conveniently McKay, one of Kendrick's employees has recently had a near-fatal car crash on the M4 and Duffy steps into his shoes and works undercover in Kendrick's warehouse. Duffy feels himself being watched by Mrs Boseley the dour HR manager as he uncovers evidence of cocaine smuggling.

Reception

David Montrose found the novel less impressive than Duffy, though interesting in some ways. Richard Brown praised the way in which Fiddle City provides 'vivid low-life detail'.

External links

Official website

References

^ www.amazon.co.uk Retrieved 2019-05-02.
Duffy (Duffy 1): Amazon.co.uk: Dan Kavanagh: 9781409150176: Books Retrieved 2019-05-04.
David Montrose, 'Julian Barnes', in D. L. Kirkpatrick (ed.) Contemporary Novelists, 4th edn (London: St James Press), p69.
Richard Brown, 'Julian Barnes', in Neil Schlager and Josh Lauer (eds), Contemporary Novelists, 7th edn (New York: St James Press, 1996; updated byTobias Wachinger, 2001), p78.

Julian Barnes

Novels

Metroland (1980)
Before She Met Me (1982)
Flaubert's Parrot (1984)
Staring at the Sun (1986)
A History of the World in 10½ Chapters (1989)
Talking It Over (1991)
The Porcupine (1992)
England, England (1998)
Love, etc (2000)
Arthur & George (2005)
The Sense of an Ending (2011)
The Noise of Time (2016)
The Only Story (2018)
Elizabeth Finch (2022)

as Dan Kavanagh	Duffy (1980) Fiddle City (1981)

Short story collections

Cross Channel (1996)
The Lemon Table (2004)
Pulse (2011)

Non-fiction books

Film adaptions

Metroland (1997)
The Sense of an Ending (2017)

This article about a novel of the 1980s with a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer theme is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it.

See guidelines for writing about novels. Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page.

Categories: