Barbara Cleverly has created a wonderful series character in Scotland Yard Cmdr. Joe Sandilands, and he makes his fifth outing in THE BEE’S KISS, now in paperback after seeing hardcover release in 2002. Set in the period between the wars, the Commander is a tough ex-officer who’s seen fighting in the trenches, and now he trods the streets of London attempting to restore order to the world.
The Commander is called to the posh Ritz hotel to investigate the death of Dame Beatrice Jagow-Joliffe. She was brutally murdered and a valuable emerald necklace stolen. A violent cat burglar? Hardly. Sandilands assembles his team: a hard-bitten sergeant named Armitage and a surprising female constable named Westhorpe.
They soon discover that the Dame was a powerful force indeed, and was to have been instrumental in re-establishing the Wrens, the women’s branch of the naval service. Important personages are very interested in the outcome of the case, perhaps too much so. Eventually, the case is shut down by higher authority, but obviously that’s not going to stop the Commander.
Cleverly has this confident, flowing style, and she’s completely unafraid of using period terminology – words that are of their time but unfamiliar nowadays. This is the right thing to do, as it fully immerses the reader into this complicated world of class and manners. Judicious use of simile – “In they came, a stream of black bowler hats and overcoats, moving like iron filings inexorably drawn to the magnet of the city” – and smartly buttoned-up character descriptions make the text a pleasure to read.
What’s surprising are the occasional lapses from the staid and proper mores and manners of the era – lapses that are certainly realistic, but which we don’t see often in detective fiction. There’s also an excellent amount of deductive police work and even some 1920s-style forensics.
This all adds up to the best kind of period detective fiction: not too mired in the details, not too loose with the realism. It would be an excellent series for you to investigate. –Mark Rose
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THESE AUTHORS:
• THE PALACE TIGER by Barbara Cleverly
