Books: The Hidden Masters and the Unspeakable Evil by Jack Barrow (2006/2020)

“The Three Hidden Masters – two from Hemel Hempstead, one from Bricket Wood (you’ll get that once you’ve read the book) – are pretty low-key, laid-back guys. Of course, all the beer, rum and weed they consume contribute to that. So when their friend Geoff, the Fourth Hidden Master (from Blackpool), contacts them for help it’s rather an effort for Clint, Nigel and Wayne to mobilize for a weekend trip up there to lend a hand. It seems strange things are afoot in Blackpool. Initially it appears to be confined to the model village Geoff is building, where figures are moving around of their own accord and, even more disturbing, figures Geoff didn’t even make for the village are appearing out of nowhere. If that was the only strange thing happening it could be written off as voodoo gone wrong, which has been known to happen to Geoff on an occasion or two. It quickly becomes apparent, however, that there are larger forces at work in Blackpool. Is it simply that the local council has disturbing plans to turn Blackpool into the Las Vegas of England, or is something more sinister at work, something that could threaten to tear a hole in the fabric of the Universe? Well, whatever it is, the Hidden Masters have to wrap things up by Sunday night… they do have to be back at work on Monday after all.”

Jack Barrow’s The Hidden Masters and the Unspeakable Evil takes a heavy dollop of Douglas Adams, Monty Python, Robert Rankin (it was because of this writer, I found Barrow’s book), and your basic old-style British sitcom of arrested developed men. Then he adds dashes of mystical doings, and you get this often silly, sometimes frustrating work (the book constantly breaks the “fourth” wall and goes off on historical and pop culture references ala Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy that could’ve easily been dropped). A lot goes on here, but your mileage will vary on how much suspension of belief you’re willing to give. I admit, Nigel, Wayne and Clint are interesting heroes (sort of lesser cousins to John Dortmunder and his gang from the Donald E. Westlake books), but I found their single mindedness with alcohol and weed to grow tiresome after awhile –we get it, they love to drink and smoke pot. And they love to argue about nonsensical things and be sarcastic.  

There are, however, some clever ideas here, including when Wayne and Clint actually get pulled into the miniature model village (like in Beetlejuice) and is by far the best bit early in the book. The other set piece I liked was the hotel sequence with the mobsters –but it could’ve been tightened up a bit. And I think, in the end, this could be a great book, a great series, if Barrow’s had a better editor to strengthen the book. The prose is strong, the humor great, and he makes Blackpool his punching bag (though there was once a proposal to transform Blackpool into a casino resort along the lines of the Las Vegas and Atlantic City, for it to become the center point of gambling in the UK). Still, it took me way too long to get through it. While I’ve always appreciated the dry British humor, the jokes do get repetitive (two from Hemel Hempstead, one from Bricket Wood) and so I end up skipping pages.

Books: What Abigail Did That Summer By Ben Aaronovitch (2021)

“It is the summer of 2013 and thirteen year-old Abigail Kamara has been left to her own devices. This might, by those who know her, be considered a mistake. While her cousin, police constable and apprentice wizard Peter Grant, is off in the sticks, chasing unicorns, Abigail is chasing her own mystery. Teenagers around Hampstead Heath have been going missing but before the police can get fully engaged, the teens return home - unharmed but vague about where they've been. Aided only by her new friend, Simon, her knowledge that magic is real and a posse of talking foxes that think they're spies, Abigail must venture into the wilds of Hampstead to discover who is luring the teenagers and more importantly - why?”

While released in 2021, this long novella (or just call it a short novel) is set during the events of 2014’s River of London novel, Foxglove Summer (itself set in 2013). There are no real connections between What Abigail Did That Summer and that book, only a semi-similar theme of kids vanishing. But in this sort-of spin-off, we get a more detailed look into Abigail’s life, her family and the issues of race and responsibility to people. She’s appeared in the main series, but we learn so much more about her, why she is so keen to learn magic, why she’s taking Latin. We learn more, as well, for her affinity for talking foxes who live on the Heath. Like the parent series, we learn a lot about another particular city in London, this time the Heath and its relationship to the Rivers.

This is a somewhat lighter toned tale, straddling the line between YA and adult fiction. For history buffs and just curious people about the cities that make up London, Aaronovitch once again goes into deep details about social issues, like how the house prices one side of a street are higher than the other, which usually entails the color of one’s skin. Like the parent series, this tale does have some minor pacing issues, but last quarter is excellent and strange. It’s not really a haunted house tale, but there is ghosts and a little Star Trek technobable.

Much like Peter, though, Abigail is an excellent protagonist (and the little footnotes from Nightingale are a hoot), and like her cousin, she is witty, intelligent and has a smart mouth. So a fun and even different read than mother series.

Books: Foxglove Summer By Ben Arronovitch (2014)

“Following the events Broken Homes, Peter Grant is left shaken by the new developments that revealed a betrayal of a long-time colleague. The defection by this valued partner -to whom Grant also had a strong emotional tie-, has made things difficult for him and Nightingale. But the sudden disappearance of two eleven-year old girls in rural Herefordshire has become a media sensation. Given the chance to escape bad memories of London, Grant travels west with Beverley Brook, and Peter soon finds himself caught up in a deep mystery and having to tackle local cops and things that small towns seem to thrive on; a tangle of neighborly gossip, local marital issues, and local gods. And everything, it appears, closes up at 4pm!”

With the fifth book in the series, Foxglove Summer puts most events of the last four books on the backburner, as we get your basic tale of a Big City cop out in the sticks of the deep, deep suburbs. As your fish out of water story goes, you could do worse. Aaronovitch understands what he’s doing here, and while the basic plot is nothing new, we get more dimensions from Peter when he spends the entire book outside the Folly and Nightingale -who spends the entire book just communicating with Peter via the phone. There is a logical reason for this, but I sort of missed him.

I noted the pacing issues with Broken Homes (all the books seem to have this problem, which was probably why I read the first book in 2016 and did not continue on until this past year), but Foxglove Summer seems to be a more cohesive story, if only because this book had one real storyline going for it instead of multiple ones the previous ones had. Yes, we get Lesley sending antagonizing texts (and a quick phone call) and there is no visit from the Faceless Man, but this episodic book actually worked better than the more serialized four books previous.

What was also striking –and probably why I end up reading more British mysteries than American- is how everything is dealt more matter-of-factly. The child-in-jeopardy trope never felt cheap, as the cops asked more straightforward questions and gave truthful answers that most American parents would be shocked at.

We get a bunch of new characters that I hope stick around. While Beverly Brooks appeared in the first book, here she is more three-dimensional and more interesting. But new ones include Hugh Oswald, a retired wizard, traumatized by the secret magical battles of World War II, and Mellissa, his granddaughter who has a very special affinity with bees. Oswald is a sad and distinctive character and the granddaughter a bit weird. Loved Dominic, the cop assigned to help Peter. He’s gay and has a farmer boyfriend and no one in this little hamlet seems to have an issue with him or Victor.   

Peter’s trademark wit remains place, which is a seemly interesting combination of cleverness and dashes of cluelessness. He’s still honorable, despite his cheek and snarky comments, but ultimately remains a good human who happens to be a wizard-in-training.

Books: Halloween Party By Agatha Christie (1969)

“At a Hallowe’en party, Joyce – a hostile thirteen-year-old – boasts that she once witnessed a murder. When no-one believes her, she storms off home. But within hours her body is found, still in the house, drowned in an apple-bobbing tub. That night, Hercule Poirot is called in to find the ‘evil presence’. But first he must establish whether he is looking for a murderer or a double-murderer. Unmasking a murderer isn't going to be easy for Poirot. But with his friend, crime novelist Ariadne Oliver,  they investigate reckless teenagers and take on occult themes. Again, the sharp wits of Poirot and the enthusiastic deduction of Mrs Oliver join forces.”

Not a particularly exciting whodunit, but it does have the usual Christie flair of sometimes witty, sometimes mean characters. And it’s her only book where a child is murdered. The novel, though, is seemly concerned with how times have changed since Ms. Christie’s first book was released in 1920. Published 1969, near the end of her life, Halloween Party has many characters commenting on the how society has really changed in those last fifty years. There are a lot of discussions about how the criminal justice system has changed, which was probably a not so veiled reference to abolition of capital punishment in 1965 in the UK. But all the older characters seem a bit bitter that youths are taking over and disrespecting their elders and getting away with major crimes because they come from broken homes. Also, it seems, in her old age, Christie appears somewhat taken aback about how the world changed in the 1960s –the more permissiveness of any era she lived in.

The book lags and comes off more simple and less complex than her previous works –almost (maybe) like she needed a book to fulfill a contract. Still, she would publish three more novels, 1971s Nemesis, her last written featuring Miss Marple, 1972s Elephants Can Remember, the last novel she wrote featuring Hercule Poirot, and 1973s Postern of Fate, the last featuring her other recurring detectives, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. However, there were two more books featuring Poirot and Miss Marple to come. Christie, fearing she be killed during WWII, decide to write two novels that would be published after her death. So during the height of this terrible period in the 1940s, she wrote Curtain (1975), the “official” last Hercule Poirot mystery and Sleeping Murder (1976), the “official” last Miss Marple mystery. They would sit in a vault for the next three decades. But in the span of those thirty-odd years, she never went back and revised them, so they’re somewhat set outside of her established continuity of both those characters.

Indecently, actor/director Kenneth Branagh will helm and star in an adaptation of this book set for the fall of 2023. What changes will be made to the story should be interesting. The two remakes Branagh did, Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile were both set in 1934 and 1937, respectively. A Haunting in Venice, the title of this new film, will probably have to be set in the same time period. So I’m guessing all the “social commentary” of the late 1960s will be excised.