Customer Reviews

Murder in Grub Street (Sir John Fielding)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the 2nd in the Sir John Fielding series. This book finds Sir John and Jeremy once again embroiled in another murder investigation. Once again the story is great as well as the cast of characters.The descriptions of the people and customs of that time make this one of the best historical mystery series around. Do yourself a favor and pick this one up. I would advise you reading the first novel in the series before(Blind Justice) you read this one. I continue to look fwd to the latest addition to this series.

I read and loved "Blind Justice", and really looked forward to the next book. I had gotten involved in the characters' lives, and wanted to know what was going to happen next. This sequel was good, but not nearly as good as its predecessor. For one thing, the mystery started off with a bang--but then rambled on, getting ever more complicated. The characters weren't as finely drawn: especially Sir John. The alteration to his domestic life in the last chapter was hardly unexpected, but came from nowhere. I look forward to the next book, but I doubt that it will live up to the first in the series.

The day before young Jeremy Proctor is to report to his new apprenticeship with printer, Mr. Crabb, a horrible murder occurs. Crabb, his wife and children, and two of his assistants are butchered in their beds. The suspect is a mad poet, John Clayton, who was found holding an axe and covered with blood in the house. While Sir John Fielding investigates the crime, he and Jeremy become aware of a new direction for their lives and their interest is aroused by a religious sect from America.

Jeremy is now 13 and thrilled to be taken into Sir John's household as are the readers. You are transported to Regency London to observe actual historical characters as they might have been. Vivid language, multi-dimensional characters, and carefully detailed descriptions all contribute to a rich tale of murder most foul.

As others say, there's not much mystery here. But I enjoyed the atmospheric story of 1750's London street life, the new civil police, religious conspiracies and debate, criminal jurisprudence, and the effects of windstorms. I liked the contexts provided for famous but hitherto isolated things like Bedlam, Co(n)vent Gardens, coffehouses, Boswell's Samuel Johnson, Henry Fielding (Tom Jones), and the famous Grub Street itself (scene of the bloodiest events). The writing is quite "proper" and rather sentimentalizes boy hero Jeremy, aide to the blind Judge Fielding, but includes an intriguing dollop of the "flash" street slang of the day, in the person of a street urchin who one hopes becomes a regular in the series. In an odd way the major events of the second half, when the evil genius has been singled out, are a reprise of the first: the type of murder, the undertaker, the street vendor, the reformed prostitute, the urchin, all come back rather as goody-goodies.

Recently orphaned Jeremy Proctor, "adopted" by blind magistrate Sir John Fielding and dutifully installed in the position of his assistant, protégé, jack-of-all-trades and utilitarian gopher, narrates a thoroughly entertaining tale of their continuing life together in "Murder in Grub Street". Mere hours before Proctor is to report to a publishing house to begin his apprenticeship, Ezekiel Crabb, the owner, his entire family and two of their staff are found brutally axe murdered. John Clayton, a disgruntled poet fresh from a heated disagreement with Crabb is found wandering in the house, dazed and bewildered, clutching the murder weapon and the constabulary are immediately convinced the murder has solved itself! Fielding, of course, remains unconvinced by the evidence and looks elsewhere concerned that failure to find the real culprit might result in the conviction and execution of an innocent man.

Not to insult any reader's intelligence, least of all my own, but when other apparently unrelated murders and an arson in a nearby synagogue point Fielding's sleuthing in the direction of an outrageous sect of American zealots styling themselves Brethren of the Spirit who would forcibly convert any Jews to Christianity - well, it doesn't take a heavyweight literary analyst to realize the two cases will come together at some point! The plotting is quite transparent and the culprit is easily predicted at little more than the halfway point of the novel.

But the real strength of this novel lies elsewhere - extraordinary characterization and atmospheric embellishment that brings people, time and place to life with a sparkling vitality and a sense of realism that can hardly be rivaled - the slums, the prisons, the docks, pubs, theater, outdoor markets, upstairs, downstairs, Grub Street and the publishing business, of course, courts, gaming houses, bordellos, street walkers, pickpockets, scamps, cut purses and thieves. Jimmie Bunkins, a ne'er do well street urchin that begs to be compared to Dickens's The Artful Dodger and Corrie Swanson, the bright but rebellious teen Goth from "Still Life With Crows", describes Sir John's wisdom, kindness and leadership ability, in a hilarious stream of street lingo that nearly defies understanding:

"What a rum cove he is! I ain't never met such a joe and I don't never hope to. I could be sent to cr*p by such as him and thank him for it."

(Now that would be an interesting and amusing English essay question for further research ... "Compare and contrast the characters of Jimmie Bunkins, The Artful Dodger and Corrie Swanson with reference to the roles of Sir John Fielding, Fagan and Aloysius Pendergast as their benefactors, teachers and mentors!")

A much more graphic and grittier novel than its predecessor "Blind Justice", Alexander has used this novel to present a mystery - not a great one but a darned good one - that brings Georgian England to life in full sound and Technicolor. Thoroughly enjoyable!

Paul Weiss

This is a true classic murder mystery. It has all the drama and mystery necessary to keep the reader turning each page. I was sorry to see it end. I wasn't aware there was such a magical series of books until recently. The story rose to a slow but persistent climax, maintaining its fantastic storyline, gripping the reader to the last page. Read it, you won't be sorry!

Young Jeremy is lucky indeed! In BLIND JUSTICE, the first book in this excellent series, he is saved from the clutches of a thief-catcher by the cunning "sight" of Sir John Fielding. Here he is saved from death itself, having been apprenticed to Ezekiel Crab, a printer, who, along with all of his employees, was slaughtered the day before Jeremy was supposed to start!

I enjoy this series - so far - immensely. Bruce Alexander does a wonderful job taking us back in time, and in this book, we are treated to some old-time London "slang", or flash-talk from a new character, Jimmie Bunkins. This may not be one of the better quotes, but it's a good one: "No, don't you dast lay your daddles on me, and don't tip a mizzle. I've something for the beak. [...] The Beak, he's the cove of your ken, ain't he? [...] You know nicks of flash, ain't it? Can't patter the gammon?"

If my Oxford English Dictionaries weren't so highly placed on my wall and hefty, it would have been fun to look up all of the "queer talk" Jimmie used and research it's etymology.

Bruce Alexander shows his leanings in MURDER, as he singles out a religious sect, or "brotherhood", and makes plain what he thinks of them and their beliefs - one of which is the conversion of the Jews. This brotherhood is one of those lunatic groups (sorry, no apologies) that believes that there are mathematical calculations that can be derived from the Bible telling us when the second coming is happening, AND that this can't happen until all of the Jews have been converted to Christianity. Alexander points out that this particular group is trying to prove one particular date while disproving a date already "proven" for the second coming - 1700. (That's why I say, "no apologies" - how many dates have been proven by concrete biblical numerology already?)

He also shows another side of Sir John Fielding, one that, I admit, I was surprised to see. We already know that he has a soft spot for people forced into positions because they were down on their luck, or born at the wrong time or place, or to the wrong people. Another "category" enters his soft spot, and while some may write the series off because of it, that's jim-dandy by me.

The sequel to Alexander's excellent "Blind Justice" is a disappointment. There is no solution and no surprise; the culprit is obvious early on, and the story ends with an all-too-familiar chase scene instead of a triumph in detection. The setting will once again please some readers, but the plot leaves much to be desired. For devoted fans only.

"Murder in Grub Street", the second installment in Bruce Alexander's "Bow Street Runners" series is more carefully crafted than the first book, but still has weaknesses. It is a period mystery set in 18th-century London. Blind magistrate Sir John Fielding and his young sidekick Jeremy, who narrates the story, solves a mass murder case in London's publishing district. It's a good tale, but some of the weaknesses of the first book are still here: Fielding does things no blind person -no matter how gifted- can do; young Jeremy speaks like an educated adult, and his occasional forays into childhood speech sound just like an adult-trying-to-write-like-a-child wrote them. The plot is carefully constructed but hinges on some artificial twists that must leave readers shaking their heads: Jeremy narrowly escapes from a building that blows down in the wind, not once but twice; a poor street urchin pops up conveniently every few pages to provide important clues. The most interesting thing about Alexander's mystery series is the local color and language of historical London. They're fun and easy to read, but as mystery novels go, these first two are strictly average.

"Murder in Grub Street" was an excellent sequel to "Blind Justice", and I feel that most of those who enjoyed the first book in Bruce Alexander's Sir John Fielding series should be very appreciative of this, the second book.

In my opinion, "Murder in Grub Street" is slightly superior to "Blind Justice" partly because the characters whom we already know become more fully rounded, as Sir John Fielding officially welcomes Jeremy Proctor into his household, and their relationship becomes more akin to father-son.

Jeremy Proctor's virtue and his elevated manner of speech might be cause for some annoyance, but he is NOT a complete goody-two shoes, and one of the seminal occurrences in this novel is when he gets into a street brawl with sneak thief, Jimmy Bunkins, a lad about Jeremy's own age.

The brawl between Jeremy and Bunkins becomes occasion for Sir John to actually regard Jeremy as a son who has, on this occasion, disappointed him, and we see how Sir John deals with a situation in which Jeremy has, for the first time, failed to meet his expectations.

Jeremy's antagonist, Bunkins, communicates not in the King's English but in his street "cant" (slang), which is remarkably easy for the reader to follow, and he becomes a key figure in the story and will presumably figure again in this series. Bunkins's morally-flawed but street-wise personality makes him a good foil to Jeremy.

When he warns Jeremy, "You'll do nicks to me, for I see no Beak-runners by your side, nor barking irons in your daddles", I was pleasantly surprised to realize that I had no trouble interpreting this to mean, "You'll do nothing to me, for I don't see any officers of the law with you or any guns in your pockets."

Bunkins's colorful mode of expression, as well as his personality, make him an attractive character in spite of his faults. And if he seems a little too Dickensian to be regarded as completely of the author's creation, Alexander pays proper homage to the origins of this character by describing him as running away "at full speed, dodging artfully through the pedestrians in the street."

Bunkins's introduction into the series also provides the occasion for the re-introduction of "Black Jack" Bilbo, the owner of the gambling house on St. James Street with the mysterious and reputedly sinister past, who is also a stimulating character.

And notwithstanding Jeremy's sometimes too-treacly personality, there are a number of things which ensure that the story itself never gets too sugary. The mystery around which it centers is the gruesome murder of the household of Ezekiel Crabb, publisher and book-seller in Grub Street, and we are also introduced to the grotesque image of "The Raker", who collects and disposes of corpses for the cities of London and Westminster ("He enjoys his work too much. There is something unholy about the man," Sir John remarks). There is also a not-easily-forgotten trip to Bedlam, the famed London insane asylum, as it existed in the 18th century.

While the revelation that climaxes this novel may not be all that surprising, the climax is still filled with more drama than that the first novel contained.

All in all, an excellent sequel, and I look forward to reading the next novels in the series.