Scotland Yard
Nothing Ventured
I’m currently grappling with some very deep and challenging topics, so needed a little light relief and an escape from brain overload and emotional tension. Jeffrey Archer ticked all the boxes and Nothing Ventured – the first of his William Warwick series – has proved both undemanding and distracting. Oh, and with a nice line in humour. Just what the doctor ordered.
It’s billed as ‘not a detective story, but a story about a detective’. DC William Warwick is the product of an expensive private education, with a degree in Art History, and a lifelong yearning and determination to be a police detective. His father is an eminent judge and his sister a successful barrister, but William does his best to hide these facts from his fellow officers; he wants to advance on his own merits alone. What he’s less able to hide are his privileged ‘choirboy’ credentials.
Having been very successfully mentored by an excellent near-retirement sergeant on the beat and given invaluable practical advice, William is devastated when Fred is killed in the line of duty while they are out on the streets, and he is himself wounded in the same incident. But by this time his own innate abilities are all too obvious and he is fast tracked to Scotland Yard into the Art and Antiques Squad.
With his background in Art History he’s uniquely qualified to join a team investigating the theft of priceless masterpieces by the great artists, and the clever replication of certain special pieces. When he falls in love with Beth Rainsford, a girl from the Fitzmolean Museum from where one great work was stolen seven years earlier, he also gets embroiled in her personal campaign to free her father, Arthur, from prison where he is serving time for murder. William becomes a key player in both cases, and both his father, Sir Julian Warwick, and his sister, Grace, are instrumental in defending Arthur’s innocence.
When the mastermind behind the theft of paintings is apprehended, both his case and the review of Arthur Rainsford’s case come to court at the same time. Archer skilfully has us dipping back and forth into Court 22 and Court 14, following the arguments in each case, eyes flicking from the immobile faces of the experienced judges, to the reactions of counsel as they score or lose points, to the concentration of the jury, to the sneer on the face of the man in the dock.
Fred Yates’ advice to a rookie PC Warwick at the outset of his career is: ABC – Accept nothing. Believe no one. Challenge everything. And that’s what we need to do with this book. Archer is brilliant at weaving a clever plot and keeping us guessing till the end which way the courts will swing. Nothing Ventured filled this brief very satisfactorily.
Eyes closed but wide awake
Life chez nous is becoming very scrambled this spring. Three weddings and a couple of conferences all involving long car journeys (of the several-hundred-miles-in-one-hop variety) … looming literary appointments … elderly folk needing tlc … family commitments … amongst the usual hmdrum responsibilities. Which is a long-winded way of saying, not much time to sit writing novels.
As far as the current story (about a family whose lives are devastated by a car crash) goes, I know I need to lift the mood somewhat. And I’ve identified the way forward: another secondary narrative thread. But it requires a lot of concentration to hang on to which of my characters is doing what, where and in what time frame; to place enough cues strategically without losing pace or flow. So, with everything else going on, it’s left to the deep recesses of the night-time brain to develop this new storyline.
Which reminds me of the narrator in the fictional Diary of an Ex-Detective (1959): ‘When I am deeply perplexed it is my practice to go to bed, and lie there till I have solved my doubts and perplexities. With my eyes closed, but wide awake, and nothing to disturb me, I can work out my problems.’ quoted in the The Suspicions of Mr Whicher. I’m doing a fair bit of problem-solving with my eyes closed these days, not just during the long watches of the night, but also on those aforementioned long journeys – not, I hasten to add, when I’m in the driving seat.
But for those of you who haven’t made the acquaintance of late great Mr Whicher, here’s a summary. One summer night in 1860 the well-to-do Kent family went to sleep in an elegant Georgian house in Wiltshire. Mr and the second Mrs Samuel Kent, their children, their domestic staff. Next morning their world is blown apart by the discovery of the gruesome murder of one of the children. What’s more it seems that the perpetrator of the crime must be someone within the household.
The celebrated detective Jack Whicher from Scotland Yard is brought in to investigate but his conclusions fly in the face of the verdicts of the local police and others. He believes the daughter of Samuel Kent’s first marriage is to blame, but almost everyone else comes into the frame at some stage. And so powerful are the voices raised in opposition that Mr Whicher’s mighty reputation crumbles and he fades into obscurity. The true story only evolves gradually over many years.
The book is a reconstruction of a real case but begins like a novel. Whatever its later shortcomings, hats off to Kate Summerscale for her meticulously detailed research. She weaves in the work of authors of the time, historical landmarks, other notorious cases, alongside her account of who said what, who did what, and when. Rather too many deviations, in my view, detracting from the pace of the main storyline. Probably why she needs to repeat points so often to remind the reader of the salient facts of this case. But in the process she brings into stark relief the harsh and capricious nature of the legal system of the day, with all its limitations. There’s no DNA evidence, no CCTV documentation, no sophisticated pathology result, to substantiate the circumstantial suspicions. The death penalty is meted out after short brutal trials. Public hangings are still a spectator sport.
And the class structure still divides. Whicher himself is seen by some as a greedy and inept working class fellow, meddling in middle class affairs. But by others as a fearless pursuer of the truth irrespective of class distinctions. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t.
His investigation certainly shines a light into a closed-up house, into the secretive world beneath the veneer of well-to-do respectability, into the divided loyalties above and below stairs, into the complex emotions of step-relations. Police procedure involves measuring breasts, examining night attire for bodily fluids, asking indelicate questions of nice young ladies – all in a context of Victorian prudery and secrecy. Sensational stuff for its age. It attracts huge media attention. And the echoes and repercussions go on for decades.
I enjoyed the clever piecing together of the fragments of a story from many sources. And the unravelling of a family’s life during that era. A clever idea adroitly executed. I wasn’t so keen on the time it took to tell the story and the repetitive elements. But it made me appreciate the fact that at least any false trails I might lay won’t lead to the gallows.
Hmmm, clutching at straws comes to mind!