Published: Penguin 1962
For forty years or so, the serious (but now more or less forgotten) novelist and academic J.I.M. Stewart produced popular thrillers under the pseudonym of Michael Innes. Most of these are crime novels featuring upper class policeman John Appleby; this one is not one of them. It tells of the accidential discovery of a missive art smuggling operation taking advantage of the devastation of Europe during the Second World War. Richard Meredith, an academic, is thinking about poetry while selecting a purchase in a London tobacconist, and absently murmurs "London, a poem": words taken by the shopkeeper to be the smugglers' password; the shop itself covers the entrance to an underground warehouse storing an incredible collection of art. There, Meredith, instead of going to the police, pretends to be a gang member, kills a man, escapes with a kidnapped young woman, and follows the trail to a bizarre Scottish castle with associated guano mining operation.
From London Far is, like most of those Stewart published as Michael Innes, a whimsical novel - in this case too much so for its own good. The plot is full of absurdities, and is obviously intended to be a parody of those early twentieth century adventure stories where an ordinary person (who just happens to be resourceful enough to be a hero) discovers a plot through a contrived coincidence. Most of these books can be seen as imitators of John Buchan, whose Richard Hannay in The Thirty-Nine Steps is perhaps the best known example of such a hero. The satire starts from Meredith being a scholar of classical literature rather than fullback of the Scottish Rugby team or a South African diamond prospector visiting England. There is obviously a place for such a parody, but the novel goes on to be filled with many more absurdities which are irritating rather than humorous. In Scotland, for example, Meredith is able to play an almost identical trick on the group of smugglers there to the impersonation he carried out in London, something that seems most unlikely after the invention of the telephone. Too much of what is going on is obscured from the reader for too much of the novel, making much of the action seem unmotivated, and the allusive nature of Innes' style makes From London Far a big effort to read: not a good trait for a thriller.
There are detective stories with whimsical humour and academic detectives which work well. The Gervase Fen stories of Edmund Crispin, contemporary with Innes, are excellent, for example, and Innes' Appleby novels are generally better as long as he doesn't let himself get carried away. (Operation Pax is good, and the level of the whimsical in that novel is about that of the average episode of the Avengers, which should give some idea of just how fantastical From London Far actually gets.) I suspect that J.I.M. Stewart would be surprised that his pseudonymous works have lasted longer than the novels he publised under his own name (our local library stocks about a dozen of the one, and none of the other, suggesting that this is the case), and in this instance I would agree that From London Far is too out of date to be far from oblivion.
Showing posts with label art smuggling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art smuggling. Show all posts
Tuesday, 30 January 2007
Wednesday, 2 January 2002
Nora Roberts: Homeport (1998)
Edition: Piatkus, 1999 (Buy from Amazon)
Review number: 1023
The Jones family are an old established New England family, whose energies go into the Jones Art Institute foundation. They must be among the most dysfunctional families in literature, the novel's main character Miranda Jones spending a lot of time hoping she isn't turning into her cold and critical mother. When asked - ordered is perhaps more the word - to Florence to carry out a project in the laboratories her mother runs there, Miranda is terrified by the prospect of failure. She duly authenticates a bronze as fifteenth century (her speciality), only to be devastated when other testers declare it to be a recent fake.
At about the same time, another disaster strikes when a bronze David is stolen from the Institute gallery in the ancestral town of the family, Jones Point (where their house, Homeport, is). This, however, turns out to be a blessing in disguise when the thief returns - the David is also a fake that Miranda has authenticated. Miranda and the handsome burglar, Ryan Boldari, to whom she is strongly attracted, realise that someone has been swapping fakes for newly authenticated pieces - someone inside the Institute, on the right side of their security. The two of them resolve to prove what is going on, and so vindicate Miranda's reputation.
The background is fairly good, if not as convincing as that of Iain Pears' Jonathan Argyll novels - the policeman investigating the theft seems never to have heard of the idea of stealing to order, which is unlikely, to say the least. The tone of the novel is rather like Elizabeth Peters, though taking itself rather more seriously as a thriller. In Boldari, Roberts has created another hero very similar to Roarke, from the Eve Dallas novels she has written as J.D. Robb. Something else that Homeport shares with this series is poor quality proof reading.
The ingredients in this art world thriller may be hackneyed, but Roberts puts them together to create an enjoyable read.
Review number: 1023
The Jones family are an old established New England family, whose energies go into the Jones Art Institute foundation. They must be among the most dysfunctional families in literature, the novel's main character Miranda Jones spending a lot of time hoping she isn't turning into her cold and critical mother. When asked - ordered is perhaps more the word - to Florence to carry out a project in the laboratories her mother runs there, Miranda is terrified by the prospect of failure. She duly authenticates a bronze as fifteenth century (her speciality), only to be devastated when other testers declare it to be a recent fake.
At about the same time, another disaster strikes when a bronze David is stolen from the Institute gallery in the ancestral town of the family, Jones Point (where their house, Homeport, is). This, however, turns out to be a blessing in disguise when the thief returns - the David is also a fake that Miranda has authenticated. Miranda and the handsome burglar, Ryan Boldari, to whom she is strongly attracted, realise that someone has been swapping fakes for newly authenticated pieces - someone inside the Institute, on the right side of their security. The two of them resolve to prove what is going on, and so vindicate Miranda's reputation.
The background is fairly good, if not as convincing as that of Iain Pears' Jonathan Argyll novels - the policeman investigating the theft seems never to have heard of the idea of stealing to order, which is unlikely, to say the least. The tone of the novel is rather like Elizabeth Peters, though taking itself rather more seriously as a thriller. In Boldari, Roberts has created another hero very similar to Roarke, from the Eve Dallas novels she has written as J.D. Robb. Something else that Homeport shares with this series is poor quality proof reading.
The ingredients in this art world thriller may be hackneyed, but Roberts puts them together to create an enjoyable read.
Saturday, 27 January 2001
Gavin Lyall: Venus With Pistol (1969)
Edition: Companion Book Club, 1971 (Buy from Amazon)
Review number: 731
Like the "hero" of Midnight Plus One, Gilbert Kemp is aging and on the point of retiring from his role as a man of action. This is rather less admirable than that of Lewis Cane, as he is a professional art smuggler rather than a hero of the French Resistance. He is employed to help a rich Nicaraguan woman set up a national gallery there, evading the "tiresome" restrictions on the export of art. However, some sort of rival gang knows what is going on and people are being attacked and even killed.
The title of Venus With Pistol is that of a rather silly sixteenth century painting with which Kemp becomes involved, a picture of a naked woman with a pistol on her lap; a painting with obvious Freudian interpretations. The novel as a whole is never totally serious; it is a self-deprecating first person narrative. It is a passable read, entertaining if never really gripping. Midnight Plus One is rather better.
Review number: 731
Like the "hero" of Midnight Plus One, Gilbert Kemp is aging and on the point of retiring from his role as a man of action. This is rather less admirable than that of Lewis Cane, as he is a professional art smuggler rather than a hero of the French Resistance. He is employed to help a rich Nicaraguan woman set up a national gallery there, evading the "tiresome" restrictions on the export of art. However, some sort of rival gang knows what is going on and people are being attacked and even killed.
The title of Venus With Pistol is that of a rather silly sixteenth century painting with which Kemp becomes involved, a picture of a naked woman with a pistol on her lap; a painting with obvious Freudian interpretations. The novel as a whole is never totally serious; it is a self-deprecating first person narrative. It is a passable read, entertaining if never really gripping. Midnight Plus One is rather better.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
