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Publisher:
Constable (Constable & Robinson) |
Release
Date:
17 October 2003 |
ISBN:
1841195723 |
Awards:
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Format
Reviewed: Hardback |
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it at Amazon US
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Read
an Excerpt |
Genre:
Historical Crime [1937 - Aboard the Queen Mary from London to
New York] |
Reviewed:
2003 |
Reviewer:
Rachel A Hyde |
Reviewer
Notes: |
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Dangerous
Sea
By David
Roberts
Lord
Edward Corinth and Verity Brown are all at sea for their fourth
adventure, and after having tried the style of John Buchan and Dorothy
L Sayers on for size are now in Agatha Christie mode for a spot
of classic 30s crime fiction. Lord Edward's mission is to make sure
that nothing untoward happens to economist Lord Benyon, crossing
the Atlantic to persuade President Roosevelt to aid Britain if there
is a war. Meanwhile Verity is also planning a trip on the liner
on party business, to liaise with her American counterparts. Also
lurking in First Class is a black singer and his white starlet wife,
a racist Southern senator, some distant Roosevelt relatives and
a creepy art dealer to name just a few. It is not long before somebody
is dead in bizarre surroundings
I have remarked while reviewing the
three predecessors of this novel that David Roberts tends to have
the 1930s in all their full-blooded glory as the star turn and the
plot somewhere in the background. This is also true of this novel,
which has an unremarkable classic crime era storyline which is entertaining
enough, but a more animated portrayal of this most ominous of decades
is hard to imagine. There is a vibrant feeling of exciting ideas
crackling in the air like radio waves, and of the birth of the modern
world, as we know it that is palpable. Much is made of the various
characters' political leanings, especially Communism which is in
one way the main topic of the book as Verity and her comrades ponder
on whether it is the way ahead or whether Fascism will triumph and
what that will mean for life as they know it. Hollywood's racist
tensions, the impending war and tales of Jews' plight in Germany
are the topics of the passengers' conversations as they sail on
a wonderfully realised luxury liner, and their lives are frozen
and replaced with something else for the few days it takes to cross
the ocean. Roberts manages to convey the artificial world of the
Queen Mary as the perfect foil to murder and the ferment of the
world outside and the whole novel pulsates with energetic history.
As ever, Edward is unremarkable but Verity is a really strong and
three-dimensional character that leaps off the page. My initial
fears that this is going to be a series of Sayers clones were unfounded,
and I guess the whodunits provide an entertaining framework to hang
all this history on. Is this enough? Not quite. I still think that
if Roberts ever comes up with a thrilling plot and marries it with
his meticulous historical research he will come up with a real classics.
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