Customer Reviews

Ambrose Bierce and the Queen of Spades (Penguin Mysteries)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

To start, I liked this book, but not as much as I hoped to like it. It is a nice historical mystery, but it is not in the league of The Alienist, a work to which it is often compared. The narrator, Tom Redmond, is a likeable character, but just as he is confused with the many characters in this mystery, so is the reader.

The story searches for the Morton Street Slasher, but the reader who wants a plot similar to the Alienist (which follows the trail of the killer) will be disappointed to learn that this book is more about mining and railroad politics than the search for a killer. If you are interested in the backroom politics of San Francisco in the 1870's or really love the wit of Ambrose Bierce, then you'll probably love this book ... if you're like me, and you like Ambrose Bierce's dark humor but could do without the smoke-filled rooms, then you'll just find it an interesting diversion.

This book tells the story of young Tom Redmond, apprentice to the famous (or infamous, depending on how you look at it) Ambrose Bierce. Redmond and Bierce try to track down a Ripper-style killer of prostitutes and unravel a mystery that has ties to the California Gold Rush and the Railroad boom in California. All in all, the history is good (and you'll probably learn a good bit if you know nothing about mining or railroads) and the mysteries provide a nice little puzzle. Despite the title, Bierce is not the main character, Redmond is, and he's quite an interesting, well-developed and sympathetic one. Bierce is kind of a secondary character, although the book is peppered with his acerbic, sarcastic thinking (one of the things I enjoyed most of all, actually). This book is less Holmes-and-Watson than Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, which is a more satisfying arrangement, I think. I enjoyed it and I think most people who like historical mysteries will enjoy it also.

Hall transports you into the life of both Bierce and Redmond in such a way that you walk with them throughout their adventure. The plot twists and turns, as does Bierce's mind and Redmond's reactions. Redmond's apprenticeship to Bierce and his learning the cynicism and wit of the master takes the reader on a trip into the mind and manner of Ambrose Bierce.....the American Sherlock Homes and Watson teaming up to battle injustice and murder.

Oakley Hall is easily one of the finest authors of historical fiction -- and historical mysteries -- in the publishing world. Too many writers who produce a series based on the same character quickly run out of fresh stories, fresh images, fresh characters. Hall never seems to rush or compromise in the marvelous Ambrose Bierce series, and the Queen of Spades is one of his best. The best mystery writers -- Raymond Chandler, Caleb Carr, Dashiell Hammett, Walter Moseley -- are able to create portraits of a people and an era that are as compelling -- often much more so -- than any historian. Hall's portrayal of Victorian-era San Francisco, its sophistication and barbarity, its charms and horrors, are seamless and masterful. I think he strikes as perfect a balance between history, plot, and character as any writer I have ever read. The use of Ambrose Bierce as the intellectual guide to the series' protagonist and narrator, the ambitious, puglistic young reporter, Tom Redmond, may be the finest coup. I find myself wanting more and more of the brilliant Bierce. The fact that Hall is able to write "Bitter" Bierce with the same acerbic humor and scathing insight with which Bierce himself wrote is an extraordinary achievement. Bravo, Mr. Hall, may Redmond and Bierce continue on their marvelous journeys through one of the most fascinating cities and periods in history.

Oakley Hall is at his best with his new mystery. His characters leap off the page, the plot is thrilling, and we see San Francisco and the era in amazing and fascinating realism. Ambrose Bierce appears here in great form, and each chapter opens with a quote from the Devil's Dictionary. I recommend this book highly! I just read an article today that says that his publisher can't print the books fast enough because they are flying off the shelf! Also check out his other recent book "Separations" a novel which you will never forget!

AB & the Queen of Spades is a serviceable but not terribly engrossing mystery--a fast read for the plane if you couldn't find anything better. I picked it up because I love San Francisco in the Gilded Age and I enjoy historical mysteries. After a strong start, I found a surprisingly flat book. Hall doesn't really do much with his setting except describe it, and his characters and plot are weak.

I was unable to get interested in Bierce, who after a vivid first appearance does very little (all of it predictable) until he announces the solution to the assembled cast at the end. Tom Redmond, his idealistic and energetic sidekick, is more intriguing, but his love interest is never a believable character, and there's an lot of heavy-handed dialogue. Too much information about the railroad robber barons also bogs down the story.

A few flashes made me think Hall might once have been a better writer than this book reveals, but he doesn't seem interested in making the events meaningful to the reader or even creating suspense. Midway through I stopped caring about the mystery, but I would have given the book another star if its resolution hadn't been both wildly improbable and a triple-whammy cliché.

The real problem with this book is that others have done it better elsewhere. Karen Joy Fowler's novel Sister Noon brings the same setting to vivid life with a fraction of Hall's they-wear-this-type-of-hat details; her incisive writing brings greater insight to some of the same figures and events (notably the Sharon trial and the infamous Mary Ellen Pleasant), as well as race relations. On the historical mystery front, there are many more satisfying; my bet would be Barbara Hambly's Benjamin January books, set in New Orleans in the 1830s. Hambly uses the cultural clashes between American frontiersmen, an older colonial culture, and a minority underclass to great effect, and makes the question of whether the city's corruption will allow the guilty to be punished as suspenseful as the whodunit--two things Hall has every chance to do and never attempts.

If you're fascinated by Ambrose Bierce, the book would be worth reading, but I can't in good conscience recommend it to anyone else.

Using Ambrose Bierce as the detective in this mystery novel set in 1880's San Francisco is a clever concept. Acerbic and fiercely intelligent, Bierce makes a good protagonist. Told from the perspective of a young reporter, Ambrose Bierce and The Queen of Spades may be a bit convoluted as a mystery but as a look at a California that was in the control of the railroad industry it excels. Starting each chapter with a selection of Bierce's Devil's Dictionary sets the tone for the book well, and this a solid addition to the historical mystery genre.

Mr. Hall has written a historical-based mystery, and it succeeds and fails as most representatives of that genre. He has done his research, however, but goes to great pains to make sure we know the fact. For example, he relentlessly makes the point of showing the reader he has read Bierce's "Write It Right." (And why must all authors who do historical novels with "realistic" dialog always find it necessary to slip in that they know the proper period terms for prostitutes, euphamisms for sex, and male and female genetalia?) Ambrose Bierce is more a characeture than character, but few people will notice it. After a few awkward establishing paragraphs, the story proceeds apace as a fairly standard period mystery, but it read far too much like a Sherlock Holmes story, with Bierce and Tom Redmond playing Holmes and Dr. Watson respectively, down to the functions and affectations. Nevertheless, one of the most grevious oversights is in that the wrap up paragraphs after the mystery is solved, Mr. Hall neglects to mention anything about Bierce's dissappearance into the Mexican Civil War, arguably the most enigmatic and noteworthy even in Bierce's interesting life.