Helter-Skelter by Patricia Moyes

First published: 1968

Type of work: Thriller

Themes: Coming-of-age, crime, and love and romance

Time of work: The late 1960’s

Recommended Ages: 15-18

Locale: Eastport (on the east coast of England) and London

Principal Characters:

• Felicity (Cat) Bell, an independent-minded eighteen-year-old, who loves the adventure of boating
• Prudence (Prue) Bell, her flirtatious elder sister
• Dick Malley, her neighborhood friend, also eighteen
• Tim Malley, Dick’s good-looking elder brother
• Uncle Peter, the commanding officer of HMS Porpoise
• Aunt Jane, a woman who prides herself in her homemaking abilities
• Michael Harper, a remote young officer of the Porpoise
• Robin Carey, a witty, charming, thirtyish officer of the Porpoise
• Old Martin, an illiterate roving tinker, who is missing
• Mick Reilly, the gruff, grizzled owner of Woodfield Farm

The Story

Helter-Skelter follows an interwoven plot line of political and personal intrigue. The novel opens as eighteen-year-old Felicity Bell, nicknamed “Cat,” who lives on the edge of London, is planning to spend her summer vacation with her Uncle Peter and Aunt Jane in Eastport, on England’s east coast. Uncle Peter is the commanding officer of HMS Porpoise, a high-security naval research station, but what interests Cat, with her passion for boats and boating, is Eastport’s reputation as a yachting center. Cat arranges for her neighbors, Dick and Tim Malley, to haul the boat that they built and named Cat (in her honor) and join her at Eastport. To Cat’s dismay, her fashionable elder sister Prudence, or Prue, announces that she, too, will visit Eastport—to keep an eye on Cat, she assures their mother, though later she admits to Cat an ulterior motive: She has met an attractive young officer of the Porpoise, named Michael Harper.

The visit begins awkwardly. Aunt Jane anxiously entreats the girls to act subdued around the house, as their uncle has much on his mind. Prue loses no time in telephoning Lieutenant Harper and running off for a date, demanding a front-door key and acting rudely to Aunt Jane. Cat is forced to ask permission for the Malleys to stay temporarily at The Moorings, the house of Aunt Jane and Uncle Peter. Fortunately, The Moorings has a private landing, and the brothers easily charm Aunt Jane.

At a cocktail party, Cat meets thirtyish, bright, and personable Robin Carey, an officer of the Porpoise, to whom, she jealously observes, Prue is attracted. She ponders how she herself can be in love with two men at once: Robin undeniably fascinates her, yet she remains in the grips of a crush on Tim. Soon, other questions crowd her thoughts. Returning from their first day of sailing, the Malleys and Cat discover a floating body wearing a red shirt. They direct the river police to the spot, a creek, only to have them fish out a tree trunk draped with a red rag and split in two on one end, like sprawled legs. Cat also learns what has been troubling her uncle: He suspects security leaks by a spy from the Porpoise. Handed an inconclusive report by Scotland Yard, along with embarrassing articles appearing in the newspaper, he is being pressured by the government to resolve the matter quickly or face dismissal. Cat senses a link between these mysteries.

Concurrently, her romantic life is undergoing complication. At Eastport’s Tithe Fair, she enjoys Robin’s attention, including a kiss. Afterward, at a pub, she overhears locals bemoan the absence from the fair of Old Martin, a roving tinker who customarily wears a red shirt. Dick, Tim, and Cat plan to explore the creek further, as well as nearby Woodfield Farm. Investigation yields a piece of red flannel material retrieved from the creek. They also meet the farm’s owner, Mick Reilly, who also owns a punt—a sort of floating hide, or flat boat, for duck shooting, which can be pushed in the thick reeds between the creek and shore. They learn that an arrangement has been made with the officers of the Porpoise for its hire during the season. Mick, however, avoids disclosing who had use of the punt the night the body was discovered.

Sleuthing at the pub, Cat and Dick discover that Old Martin was able to afford a room in London. Cat determines to continue her investigation there. She confides in Robin and persuades him to drive her to the city. He calls her “Kitten” and teasingly reminds her that curiosity killed the cat. Once in London, Cat meets Harry, a friend of Martin who read for him (the tinker being illiterate); strangely, the date he recalls reading for a listing of the Eastport fair was June 28, although the fair in fact took place on July 10. In Martin’s room, Cat comes upon a dirty shirt, bright red, of the same fabric as the scrap from the creek. When she rendezvouses with Robin, he hands her an edition of the paper with an item about a hit-and-run victim fitting her description.

Further upset awaits Cat at the yacht club, where she encounters not only the Malleys, as planned, but also Prue and Michael—Dick, concerned for her safety, having disclosed her scheme. Feeling isolated and betrayed, Cat resolves to operate independent of the Malleys. Sailing off alone on Cat, she finds her way to Woodfield Farm and surreptitiously enters its barn, where she uncovers a roughly made coffin in the back of Mick’s truck. Discovered and locked inside the barn by Mick, she manages to escape—into the arms of Robin. Back aboard Cat, over beers, she reveals the link between the two crimes: Martin served as the spy’s message carrier— an ideal one, being illiterate—though once the story broke, being able to identify the supplier of the messages, he had to die. Robin then divulges, as an Irishman, his hatred of England and himself as the spy and killer. He has drugged her beer to make her death appear to be a boating accident. She is rescued in time, ironically because of a phone call to the police made by Mick, and Robin is arrested.

Context

Patricia Moyes has earned popularity with adult readers of detective stories for her Rinehart Suspense Novels. She has also written screenplays and an autobiography, playfully centered on her two Siamese cats, entitled After All, They’re Only Cats (1973). Pertinent to the intrigue that fuels the plot of Helter-Skelter, Moyes was born in Ireland and brought up in England. Helter-Skelter marks her single effort to write for young adults. The novel’s emphasis on characterization exemplifies the observation by Vivian Mort of the Chicago Times that Moyes has “put the who back in whodunit.” Compared to that icon of teenage female detectives, Nancy Drew, Cat, though every bit as venturesome and ingenious, is a more recognizable individual— at times vulnerable and introspective.

Within the framework of the suspense novel, Moyes explores issues of interest to young adults: developing one’s relationship to the adult world and coming to terms with the opposite sex. Cat’s involvement in crime detection becomes an experience of initiation and intensely personal discovery. Published in the late 1960’s, when war and violence dominated world affairs and eroded the confidence of the young in governmental maneuverings, Helter-Skelter reflects the period’s sense of upheaval and disillusionment. It also offers hope in the success of an imaginative teenager who succeeds where Scotland Yard has failed.