Bear with me for a minute – you’re not in the wrong review, I promise.
Holiday reading = crime fiction and so I recently read the novel that T.S Eliot proclaimed “the first and the best detective novel” – Wilkie Collin’s The Moonstone. A review may be forthcoming at a later date, so I’ll reveal only that I did find myself thinking many times “it doesn’t half go on a bit”. I couldn’t agree more with John Sutherland’s introductory remarks in the OUP classics edition: “For readers habituated to the sophistication of late twentieth-century detective fiction, The Moonstone’s gimmicks are easily anticipated without any forbidden peaks at the novel’s last pages. Apart from the fact that the butler, Betteredge, did not do it, there is little in the novel to astonish the modern aficionado.”
Aficionado seems somewhat over the top for a self-assessment but I do take his point. Detective fiction has become much more sophisticated since publication of The Moonstone, a journey which has engendered quite a few traditions. The enjoyment in reading The Existential Detective, apart from the strong plot, is watching Thompson paying homage to, subverting and progressing said traditions at the same time. For example:
1) Name the detective after a poet. Think of Chandler’s Marlowe and Allingham’s Campion. Tick. William Blake, poet and visionary. Play with this a little more and let the contemporary detective suffer from visions/delusions. It gives Thompson all the prompts she needs to blur the lines between fact and fiction, something she excels at as I know from my previous outings.
2) Thinking Chandler and crime noir:
2a) Seedy setting, tick. Although I’m not sure that Edinburgh’s Portobello area will thank Thompson for this.
2b) Femmes fatales, tick. Although the fatale nature of the prostitutes and the cabaret singer is more passive-aggressive than seductive.
2c) A private investigator not afraid to err on the wrong side of the law. BIG tick. Cannot reveal but interestingly it raises the same question regarding guilt as Collins posed in The Moonstone. When is one really guilty?
3) Detectives are anti-social loners with problems of their own. Tick. Private investigator William Blake is divorced and distinctly anti-social. He has problems too. The subversion is that his problems are definitely bigger than those of his clients and in a circular twist (which I’ve never seen before) is that he ends up investigating his own problems!
Now I saw that coming but not the final resolution and that’s get a GIGANTIC tick from me.
Add another tick for the atmosphere of foreboding decadence, created through the recurring leitmotiv of E T A Hoffmann’s The Sandman and a poem by the real William Blake, The Sick Rose.
Another for encapsulating the above within a very unsettling modern plot involving artificial intelligence, the Russian mafia and child abduction.
All this captured in only 166 pages of Thompson’s signature clear concise prose. It never felt rushed even as I raced through it, enjoying the story and relishing the unwrapping of its many layers. I can imagine John Sutherland recognising that there is plenty in this novel to astonish the modern crime aficionado.
new one on me ,sounds good thou don’t read lot detective fiction ,mainly classics I ve read christie ,doyle and simenon ,but be truthful if I d seen this in bookshop Id would have picked it up to look at on cover alone love the dali esque cover ,all the best stu
I agree, Stu and the eeriness of the shadows on the cover is a perfect compliment to the contents. One of the best covers of 2010 for me.
That cover is a well known painting isn’t it? It looks awfully familiar – but I agree too that it is great. I’m not a big reader of crime fiction so I laughed when I read your holiday reading = crime fiction. It’s the last thing holiday reading means to me. That’s not to say, though, that I don’t enjoy some crime fiction because I do but I don’t yearn to read crime per se. If that makes sense. I do, however, plan to read Wilkie Collins one day and, perhaps not being an aficionado, I will not be disappointed in its “detectiveness”!
As for this book – it sounds like one I’d give a go. While I like “rollicking” (excuse my cliche!) big reads I am particularly impressed by short tight novels. You really need great control of language to pull them off.
The cover is, indeed, a painting,whisperinggums. A new one to me – The Mystery and Melancholy of a Street by Giorgio de Chirico.
Thanks, lizzy. I have seen it before but wouldn’t have remembered that.
ok I dont read much detective fiction but if this is only 166 pages I am willing to give it a go!
I’ve never read any Alice Thompson, but this and ‘The Falconer’ look great – especially after I read your review! I love detective fiction and I’m always looking for new authors, so thanks for posting this. And what a wonderful title.
It sounds a lot of fun, can you shed some light on the title without spoilers?
I could, Max, but I intend asking the author instead.
I’m delighted that Alice Thompson has agreed to an interview, so, all readers of LLL are invited to participate. Get your thinking caps on over the weekend and post your questions here.
Does any crime writer really surprise with great gimmicks after reading the amazing plotting of Agatha Christie? 😉
I´ve yet to read The Moonstone, but I hope I´ll like it. I loved The Woman in White.
Haven´t heard of this book yet, but then I read mostly cosy crime.