TWR with delight: Edward Marston: The Repentant Rake
*Not* a book from the 'to review' shelf; a book from the 'I have two books I really want to buy, I need another for the special offer' shelf.
The cover is beautiful. I know one should not buy books by their covers, but this one is refined and professional and beautiful in its own right. I'd heard of the author - in the 'nice, but fluff' category, and that's what I got.
The negatives:
1) The plot is just a trifle contrived. The coincidences that connect our amateur detective with the case are a bit too coincidential; coming from the second angle, I very much would have liked to meet the victim while he was alive.
2) The language is a trifle too modern. I am, for the book that it is, not averse to having relatively modern language with no attempts at forsooth and ye olde, but every now and again a piece of slang slips in and breaks the suspension of disbelief.
'he had to be put in his place' 'it will not be easy to net this [person]' - I cannot say whether some of the phrasings he uses _aren't_ authentic, but they don't *feel* it.
3) Names. I think I could have overlooked the language if the named weren't, with very few exceptions, screaming 'Anachronism'. There's a frequently-appearing character called 'Brilliana', and yes, there *was* a Brilliana living at the time of the book, but apparently only one. Almost all of the names are just a trifle unusual; I would have batted my eyes less at finding an Edward Marston in it than I did at some of the names that were present.
All in all, they are niggles. Things that make the book into something less than 'oh, wow, I love this' but not enough to stop me from reading it. The language was nothing to write home about - neither pretty nor clunky, just very readable and functional.
4) The feel of the book was decidedly Regency in many ways - wigs and card tables and going to the theatre and loose women. And I know that Sam Pepys was a theatre goer and IIRC he wasn't entirely abstinent so again, this might be authentic, but I would have liked the book better if it had brought out the post-civil-war feel more strongly. In my experience, almost everybody feels they're living in exciting times - all these new invenions! Progress everywhere! - so rather than the feeling that these characters are moving in well-established circles, I'd have liked a better sense of the time. (On brief acquaintance, I could not pin down the exact year.)
(Hm. Maybe that's something to keep in mind for historical and historically-inspired fiction in general. Describe what's new, what's different, what makes people excited, and what sets this time and place apart from others.)
The author's biography says he was a lecturer at Oxford, so presumably he *has* done his research (I did get that impression) but having done research and putting accurate details on the page isn't the same as being able to evoke an authentic feeling.
Which brings me to the last point: things the book does well: plot and gender
5) Ok, the plot isn't brilliant - there's some suspension of disbelief involved, but the pacing, overall, is very nice - there's a murder, then a hunt for the murderer, then a hunt for a blackmailer that slowly gets more interesting until it all ends in an explosive and dangerous finale - but characters aren't dropping like flies. One body is _enough_ to maintain suspense. I've read modern mysteries with four or five deaths, at which point I become suspicious of amateur sleughs (though given the period, a dedicated amateur might be more believable) so for me, this was a refreshing change of pace which allowed the amateur to do research at _relative_ leisure with enough time for personal plot and the character's profession.
6) The wymmynz: right here. For all that women were less privileged than men - and the author describes that part authentically - they are *there*. The lower-class woman who earns additional money by taking in washing, the gossip, the independent spirit who professes to friendship with a man (echoeing Sam Pepys diary - she does *not* come across as an anachronism), the widow, the married woman who bosses her husband around, the younger daughter who enjoys the relative independence as only-unmarried-daughter: there are a lot of women in this book. I wasn't even wondering about the Bechdel test, because that's not an issue, even though the main characters are male. And equally, rich people aren't all unsympathetic and stuck up, and poor people aren't rabble: there *is* some social snobbery involved (including from the POV character), but they get over it pretty quickly. And there's reverse snobbery, and *they* get over it, too.
The men are the people who go into the world, who are active... and who get threatened. No threatening women to get at the men. I hate to have to say how much it struck me as awesome - it should not stand out, this should be *normal* the women aren't used as a plot device - but there you go. I liked this very much.
Also, the dog does not die. There's a dog involved briefly, and he's part of a fight, and I feared for him from his first appearance, but the writer did *not* go for the cheap shot, not there, not ever.
A complete bibliography of the author can be found at Wikipedia - he wrote a good many books. For me, they are library reads (or I'd pick them up cheaply as ebooks) - amusing to read, good fun, but not books that I must read or that I'll go out of my way to find.
On the other hand, if I find them in the Works on the 3 for £5 offer, I'll snap up a few more.
This was a very pleasant way to spend a couple of evenings.
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comments.
The cover is beautiful. I know one should not buy books by their covers, but this one is refined and professional and beautiful in its own right. I'd heard of the author - in the 'nice, but fluff' category, and that's what I got.
The negatives:
1) The plot is just a trifle contrived. The coincidences that connect our amateur detective with the case are a bit too coincidential; coming from the second angle, I very much would have liked to meet the victim while he was alive.
2) The language is a trifle too modern. I am, for the book that it is, not averse to having relatively modern language with no attempts at forsooth and ye olde, but every now and again a piece of slang slips in and breaks the suspension of disbelief.
'he had to be put in his place' 'it will not be easy to net this [person]' - I cannot say whether some of the phrasings he uses _aren't_ authentic, but they don't *feel* it.
3) Names. I think I could have overlooked the language if the named weren't, with very few exceptions, screaming 'Anachronism'. There's a frequently-appearing character called 'Brilliana', and yes, there *was* a Brilliana living at the time of the book, but apparently only one. Almost all of the names are just a trifle unusual; I would have batted my eyes less at finding an Edward Marston in it than I did at some of the names that were present.
All in all, they are niggles. Things that make the book into something less than 'oh, wow, I love this' but not enough to stop me from reading it. The language was nothing to write home about - neither pretty nor clunky, just very readable and functional.
4) The feel of the book was decidedly Regency in many ways - wigs and card tables and going to the theatre and loose women. And I know that Sam Pepys was a theatre goer and IIRC he wasn't entirely abstinent so again, this might be authentic, but I would have liked the book better if it had brought out the post-civil-war feel more strongly. In my experience, almost everybody feels they're living in exciting times - all these new invenions! Progress everywhere! - so rather than the feeling that these characters are moving in well-established circles, I'd have liked a better sense of the time. (On brief acquaintance, I could not pin down the exact year.)
(Hm. Maybe that's something to keep in mind for historical and historically-inspired fiction in general. Describe what's new, what's different, what makes people excited, and what sets this time and place apart from others.)
The author's biography says he was a lecturer at Oxford, so presumably he *has* done his research (I did get that impression) but having done research and putting accurate details on the page isn't the same as being able to evoke an authentic feeling.
Which brings me to the last point: things the book does well: plot and gender
5) Ok, the plot isn't brilliant - there's some suspension of disbelief involved, but the pacing, overall, is very nice - there's a murder, then a hunt for the murderer, then a hunt for a blackmailer that slowly gets more interesting until it all ends in an explosive and dangerous finale - but characters aren't dropping like flies. One body is _enough_ to maintain suspense. I've read modern mysteries with four or five deaths, at which point I become suspicious of amateur sleughs (though given the period, a dedicated amateur might be more believable) so for me, this was a refreshing change of pace which allowed the amateur to do research at _relative_ leisure with enough time for personal plot and the character's profession.
6) The wymmynz: right here. For all that women were less privileged than men - and the author describes that part authentically - they are *there*. The lower-class woman who earns additional money by taking in washing, the gossip, the independent spirit who professes to friendship with a man (echoeing Sam Pepys diary - she does *not* come across as an anachronism), the widow, the married woman who bosses her husband around, the younger daughter who enjoys the relative independence as only-unmarried-daughter: there are a lot of women in this book. I wasn't even wondering about the Bechdel test, because that's not an issue, even though the main characters are male. And equally, rich people aren't all unsympathetic and stuck up, and poor people aren't rabble: there *is* some social snobbery involved (including from the POV character), but they get over it pretty quickly. And there's reverse snobbery, and *they* get over it, too.
The men are the people who go into the world, who are active... and who get threatened. No threatening women to get at the men. I hate to have to say how much it struck me as awesome - it should not stand out, this should be *normal* the women aren't used as a plot device - but there you go. I liked this very much.
Also, the dog does not die. There's a dog involved briefly, and he's part of a fight, and I feared for him from his first appearance, but the writer did *not* go for the cheap shot, not there, not ever.
A complete bibliography of the author can be found at Wikipedia - he wrote a good many books. For me, they are library reads (or I'd pick them up cheaply as ebooks) - amusing to read, good fun, but not books that I must read or that I'll go out of my way to find.
On the other hand, if I find them in the Works on the 3 for £5 offer, I'll snap up a few more.
This was a very pleasant way to spend a couple of evenings.
This entry was also posted at http://beyond-elechan.dreamwidth.org/23417.html Reply wherever you want. This post at DW has
comments.