London
1853: Charley Field is newly retired from the police and has
set himself up as a private enquiry agent. Business is slow
until Charles Dickens himself suggests that as Field was the
model for Bleak House’s Inspector Bucket, maybe calling
his agency after his alter ego might work. It does, and soon
Field is in business with plenty of cases to occupy him, some
more personal than others.
This is the first book of a potential series about the Dickens-inspired
character of “Inspector Bucket”. Field is a weary
ex-policeman with an unhappy marriage, interfering mother-in-law,
and only Rosa from Mrs Brambles’ brothel to confide
in. When she is murdered by one of Field’s old nemeses,
he is on the case ready to catch the culprit and see him swing
for his many crimes. Herein lies my own issue with this book,
as it is not the usual “whodunit” but more a game
of chase interspersed by various other short cases. Field
knows the murderer’s identity. so we do as well, rather
akin to the “Colombo” TV series, but with various
side plots with mostly quick conclusions as Field builds up
his business. He sorts out the problem of a vanishing betting
shop, investigates a medium, guards a theater where Dickens
is giving a reading, and visits more than one opium den, as
well as tangling with a femme fatale on and off throughout
the book. All this happens in the present tense, and there
is a strange beginning where the narrator says that London
in the 1850s is not how it is usually portrayed, but then
goes on to portray it in the “usual” way. It does
come alive rather well with all the smells, poverty, gripping
cold and general chicanery that readers of detective stories
set in foggy Victorian London know and love. After a disjointed
start and middle, it all picks up a pace and ends rather better
than expected when we get to the real story…but to say
more would spoil the best bits. If there is a second book,
it ought to be more interesting due to developments, but making
it more of a whodunit and losing the short cases would improve
it no end.
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