THE KEYS TO THE STREET - Book review

 

Ruth Rendell’s The Keys to the Street (1996) is yet another of her intriguing psychological suspense novels. This time she delves into the world of the street people, the dispossessed, the homeless.

The first lines of the book dwell on the iron spikes that surmount the gates of the London Park near the zoo. These – or similar – spikes are relevant later, when some murders occur: a couple of dossers are found impaled on them.

But this isn’t a detective story. The main character is Mary Jago, who works at the Irene Adler museum, which panders to fans of Sherlock Holmes. She has been cohabiting with Alistair, though now she fears him, as he has become controlling and prone to bouts of ill temper. Mary recently offered herself as a bone marrow donor and actually underwent the procedure, effectively saving a man’s life. Alistair is forcefully uncomfortable about this: ‘You need some sense shaking into you’ and shook her with a kind of frenzy (p52). So she plucks up the courage and decides to move out, and has found a temporary job of house-sitting for several months. There is also a dog left with the house – Gushi.

Mr Bean (no, not that one; see below) is a seventy-year-old dog walker and takes up to six at a time, twice daily, including Gushi. Previously, he’d been in the employ of a certain Maurice Clitheroe who was a deranged masochist. Since then, Bean is always on the lookout for scandal that might provide him with blackmail money, and has his sights on one dog-owning client, Mr Barker-Pryce, MP.

Mary and Leo Nash, the bone marrow recipient, meet and are attracted.

From time to time Mary sees a number of homeless in the park area. One of them is Roman Ashton – he’s reading Gogol’s Dead Souls when she first observes him. Roman suffered a tragic loss and sold up his house and lost himself in the streets. Despite not appearing or sounding like the usual street person, he gradually learns the ways of dossers, noting for example that ‘only another dosser sits on the seat where a dosser already is’ (p89).

Harvey Owen Bennett – known as Hob – is a damaged junkie who is willing to do anything to get a fix to relieve his ‘state’.

Another dosser is Pharaoh – real name Jimmy Clancy – whose coat is decorated with countless keys. Apparently he’s seeking ‘the keys of the Kingdom’ (p149). Mr Bean possesses a key to a private residents’ park.

The inner lives and varied past of these characters are examined by Rendell as we move through the novel, and there will be interconnections. Rendell appears knowledgeable about London’s labyrinthine streets, the habits of junkies, dog-walkers and the homeless. In addition, Rendell’s gift for description never fails to put the reader in the scene: ‘In the dark canal a full moon was reflected like a round white light under the water. Trees trailed thin branches across its surface as if to catch the moon in their net’ (p149).

Even when the twist occurs, there is no let-up for the reader. The pages have to be turned to find out what happens next.

An excellent read.

Editorial comment:

The choice of the name ‘Mr Bean’. I can’t understand why Rendell would opt for this since Rowan Atkinson had made his comical Mr Bean famous in 1990 and thereafter.

THE DEVIL'S ACRE - Book review

Matthew Plampin’s second novel, The Devil’s Acre (previously titled The Gun-maker’s Gift) was published in 2010 and concerns the establishment of a weapons factory in Pimlico on the banks of London’s River Thames in 1853; it was set up by the American gun-maker 'Colonel' Samuel Colt. At that time the building of the Palace of Westminster was not yet completed.

Londoner Edward Lowry is hired as Colt’s secretary and works alongside the firm’s English press agent Richards. Colt has brought in a handful of Americans to oversee the factory: they’re hiring locals, mainly from the slum section of the city, the Devil’s Acre and training them to work the machinery.

Lowry accompanies Colt around London, specifically the government offices, where the gun-maker hopes to obtain huge orders for his revolvers. It is not so simple, however, as Colt has competition in the form of a British gun-maker, Adams. Inevitably, politics and British preferment are involved. Yet Colt seems to have the private blessing of Lord Palmerston, who is plotting the downfall of the government. Spies and saboteurs from the Adams business add tension and violence to the mix of intrigue.

Complications arise for Lowry when he is attracted to Caroline, one of the women on the factory floor. The relationship does not begin smoothly, but gradually they embark on an affair – much to the disgust of her brother-in-law, Martin.

It transpires that Martin and several other men working in the factory are members of the Molly Maguires, an Irish secret society who are hell-bent on not only stealing a number of revolvers but also using them to assassinate a minister of the Crown.

Allegiances become strained, particularly as conflict in the Crimea looms large and Lowry begins to question the morality of weapons manufacture and sales.

The book is well-written, thrusting the reader into Victorian London – both its places of grandeur and squalor. ‘There was not much dust here as there was precious little of the lively movement required to provoke it. In its place, though, were flies, many thousands of them, plump as brandy-soaked raisins, that settled upon you if you paused for even a second, crawling for your tear ducts, your nostrils, the corners of your mouth. The smells were enough to stop the breath in your lungs, thick as fish-glue and repulsively over-ripe. Edward imagined that a multitude of deadly diseases were thronging into his body, gaining stronger purchase on his blood with every step he took.’ (p159)   

All of the characters – a mixture of real historical figures and fictional – are convincing and keep the story moving to its powerful epilogue.

Recommended.

'A must read for all mystery/thriller readers...'

THE BREAD OF TEARS

A 5-star review on Amazon UK from Eileen M. Thornton:
 
Sister Rose runs a hostel for the homeless in London. One day, returning from an engagement, she is horrified to find the body of Angela, someone she had helped in the past, outside the hostel. The girl had been murdered; the sign of the cross carved into her chest. Inside the hostel she finds two other bodies, both brutally murdered. The police are called and an investigation into the deaths begins.
 
As the story unfolds, we learn that Sister Rose had been a policewoman in Newcastle upon Tyne, where she had been attacked while working on a case...  So traumatized by the events, she spent some time in a convent to help her forget the horror she had been through. It was during her stay at the convent that she turned to God.
 
... Sister Rose soon begins to help the DCI investigate the murders. But, she also finds herself being drawn to the man himself.

I really enjoyed this novel. There are several twists and turns as it slowly leads the reader to a nail-biting climax. 

A must read for all mystery/thriller readers.

Thank you, Eileen! 

Available as a paperback and e-book here