I discovered Nevil Shute when I was reading books about and set in Australia a couple of years ago. Shute’s A Town Called Alice is justly well-known as an example of Australian flavor.
I also read the most famous of Shute’s books, the apocalyptic On the Beach, which gives a chilling picture of the world slowly dying as a result of a nuclear explosion and the resulting fallout.

I then began to look for more books by Mr. Shute, a popular and prolific author who lived from 1899-1960 and wrote over twenty novels. Shute’s full name was Nevil Shute Norway, and he was a successful aeronautical engineer as well as an author. His novels tend to feature mechanically inclined or engineer-types who are ordinary people sometimes placed in extraordinary circumstances. I would like to read all of the books that Shute wrote, but many of his novels are somewhat difficult to find. On the Beach and A Town Called Alice, maybe because both were made into movies, are readily available, but the others are not to be found in my library system. I looked and you can buy a used paperback copy of Trustee from the Toolroom on Amazon for $30.00. That’s a little rich for my blood. Some of his other novels are a bit more reasonably priced.

So I borrowed Trustee from the Toolroom from a local college library, and it’s unusual enough to be worth tracking down, if you’re looking for a clean, nineteen-fifties, adventure with a common middle class hero. Keith Stewart lives in West Ealing, a suburb of London, and he makes miniature mechanical models–clocks, steamboats, gas engines, locomotives and such– for a living. He also writes about his models for the Miniature Mechanic magazine.

I think my dad would have enjoyed this book. Daddy wasn’t much of a reader, but the details in the book about miniature engineering and about sailing and sailboats would have fascinated him. Mr. Stewart does end up in the midst of an adventure, even though he would seem to be the least likely suspect to become involved in any dangerous exploit. The themes of the book were courage, honor, the influence of steady heroism and everyday reliability, and the importance of the common man. But these themes are not emphasized in a heavy-handed way, just demonstrated as quietly as the fictional Mr. Stewart lives his life.

I suppose to some extent Trustee From the Toolroom is a guy-book, but I enjoyed it. I will admit to skimming some of the technical details of engineering and sailing, but I didn’t miss much. I’m definitely going to keep looking for more books by Nevil Shute Norway. He reminds me of some of my other favorite writers of the mid-twentieth century: Helen MacInnes, Alistair Maclean, even a touch of Rex Stout.