What I’m reading: Some Danger Involved

An old friend from my high school days (“Someday, man will land on the Moon”), Mike, has suddenly taken it upon himself to supply me with mysteries, a fact which amuses my husband, who also tries to keep me supplied.

I opened the unexpected package from Barnes & Noble (yes, I am a B&N affiliate) and found Some Danger Involved by Will Thomas the first Cyrus Barker/Thomas Llewelyn adventure. I decided to ignore what meaning the book signified in my relationship with my old friend and eagerly looked forward to reading it. Unfortunately my reading list is rather full of late (reading an annotated Pride and Prejudice and The Science of Sherlock Holmes, re-reading the Holmes short stories, proof reading Emma and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes for the online reader) and it was a few days before I could start my friend’s book.

I informed him of my tardiness and all I got back in reply was “read faster.” So I moved his book to the top of the list and finished it last night and enjoyed it thoroughly. First to note: it is not a Holmes pastiche, which I appreciate. Yes, Cyrus Barker is a quirky detective — the character prefers “enquiry agent” — and Llewelyn (you may assume from the name he is Welsh while Barker is identified as having a Scottish accent) acts somewhat as Watson, but there the resemblance ends. Barker, with his mysterious dark glasses, scars, gang markings and concealed weapons has a hint of action hero, and his relationship to Llewelyn is more paternal.

Neither character has much of the upper class about them, although Llewelyn did read at Oxford before his prison stint. Barker definitely graduated from the school of hard knocks. Also unlike Holmes, don’t expect displays of ratiocination. Barker has Holmes’ intimate knowledge of London (indeed the book makes a nice travel guide) but he refrains from inferring the existence of an ocean from a drop of water. A nice Holmes’ touch, however, is Barker challenging Llewelyn to describe him after only a brief meeting while Barker is concealed. It’s a good trick to get around what is ordinarily a cumbersome descriptive paragraph.

I think Mike also mentioned that he found the openings of My Particular Friend and Some Danger Involved similar. Both are origin stories where a down on their luck person becomes an apprentice to a charasmatic figure, although Thomas’ novel has the much greater distinction of actually being published, while I still have to finish mine.

The plot of Thomas’ book is minimal, although I don’t consider that a negative. A Jewish man, who bears a resemblance to the popular image of Christ, is found crucified in London’s Jewish ghetto. Barker is hired by the Jewish community (with a cameo from Baron Rothschild) to investigate the death and learn whether there is a danger of a pogrom (an uprising against the Jews). There’s a lot of back and forth as Barker and Llewelyn interrogate many suspects and witnesses with a lot of kosher red herrings. Again, I rarely read mysteries for plot and never try to guess whodunnit. Thomas’ plot, I felt, had as many suspects and characters and set pieces as it did because it was a simple plot that needed padding to make an entire book. I am very guilty of this in my own writing. But the quirky detective — he actually smokes a meerschaum carved into a likness of himself smoking a meerschaum — and the plucky assistant definitely caught my interest.

My only major complaint is Llewelyn’s tragic backstory that seems to cause him anguish for a convenient chapter of backstory and exposition and then disappears when he meets a pretty face. I prefer that tragic heroes can at least remain tragic for the span of a single book. Let him go for the girl in the next book. Who does he think he is, Watson?

If you’re still reading this, you may be interested to know that the next book Mike sent me (remember that cryptic “read faster”) is The Shadow in the North, a Sally Lockhart Mystery by Philip Pullman (better known for the The Golden Compass). PBS Masterpiece Mystery dramatized the first two Lockhart mysteries with Billie Piper (Rose Tyler of Doctor Who). Meanwhile my husband is demanding that I read Caleb Carr’s The Italian Secretary he bought me (OK, I made up the demanding part). And yes I know I’ve been dropping names faster than a Bing parody of Google, but the more search terms I can cram into the blog the better.