After reading, Love Among the Ruins, I decided to try another of Robert Clark’s novels, this time Mr. White’s Confession. Now, having read two of his novels, I probably won’t read more until I’ve been in such a happy, joyous state of mind and until our culture has become a magical and wondrous state of Arcadian optimism and civil cooperation, that my therapist tells me that I need a reality check; some-one who can dampen my enthusiasm and remind me of the dark days in which evil happens, killers are not apprehended and law enforcement is corrupt. Then, I will pick up Clark again. I enjoyed this novel immensely — at first. The premise is interesting. There are some bad guys (crooked cops), and there is a protagonist whom I’m sure will be proven innocent. So, I’m confident the killer of two beautiful models and aspiring actresses will be caught, that the eccentric Mr. White will be exonerated and that good will triumph over evil. Then, as the book moved into the second half, I got the feeling that this would not happen, that Clark would need to remind us of what we already know: that the world is a manifestly dark place where corruption exists, where good does not always win out and where hopes and dreams often crumble to dust under the weight of bad luck or bad choices.

3 stars