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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"It was all a deception or, more precisely, a myriad of deceptions.", March 4, 2008
This review is from: Pinkerton's Secret: A Novel (John MacRae Books) (Hardcover)
I don't generally read historical fiction, but I was drawn to Eric Lerner's novel "Pinkerton's Secret" for its subject matter. Scots born Allan Pinkerton, a radical Chartist who immigrated to America in 1842, is a fascinating, problematic figure and an integral part of American history. Perhaps best known for establishing the first detective agency in the U.S., Pinkerton was also a Union spy during the Civil War. The agency was later connected to some rather unpleasant union-busting, and at one point, Pinkerton formed a private secret service organization.
In "Pinkerton's Secret" author and screenwriter Eric Lerner recreates Pinkerton's remarkable life through his intriguing relationship with Kate Warne, his first female detective. Thrilling, compelling, and highly original, this novel is cleverly written in the form of a memoir narrated by a now elderly, dying Pinkerton. The novel begins with Pinkerton's initial meeting with Kate Warne when she applies for a position as a detective. Pinkerton, although an enlightened man for his times, is skeptical that a woman is capable of sustained disguise and deception, and so he initially dismisses the possibility of employing any females. Kate Warne, however, proceeds to show Pinkerton just how complex and unfathomable she is, and from the very beginnings of their long relationship, Pinkerton, a man who prides himself on being an expert on human nature, finds himself nonplussed by Kate's implacable, enigmatic manner.
Part historical adventure story and part romance, Pinkerton's relationship with the remarkable Kate Warne is central to this rip-roaring read. The story is set against one of the most remarkable periods of American history, and with the Civil War unleashed, these are turbulent years, but Pinkerton's memoirs reach back through time to include details of his life as a radical abolitionist and his active involvement with the Underground Railroad. In these unprecedented times, and amidst strife and boundless opportunities, Pinkerton relates his transformation from penniless, subversive Scot to eminently respectable bastion of society. While Pinkerton argues he had "no ambition for the wealth, power and peculiar social status," he recognizes that "the greatest opportunity America offers a newcomer is the chance to discover what we are really made of." And Pinkerton, at times inflexible and a firm believer in "the ends justify the means," evolves as the country undergoes vast changes, eventually becoming "the inventor of the modern science of criminal detection."
Many well-known historical figures come to life within these pages. Pinkerton, no respecter of persons, is in awe of the terrifying figure of John Brown: "the most color-blind white man" he ever met and he acknowledges, "Listening to the words of John Brown was the closest I have ever come to experiencing awe." Lincoln--obviously central to the Civil War--also appears, and he is presented here as a troubling figure--a man whose inability to take decisive action annoys Pinkerton.
While the country is ripped in two by racism, bigotry and war, Pinkerton and Kate Warne are thrown into each other's company as they take enormous risks for the Union cause. Circumstances dictate an abandonment of societal norms, and Pinkerton and his detectives including the "reckless" Timothy Webster are forced to step outside of their lives as they spy for the North. Fascinated by the unfathomable Kate Warne, Pinkerton gradually, almost grudgingly, comes to admire her, and then finds that he is falling in love, with Kate--a woman who is his intellectual equal.
Not overburdened with lengthy descriptions, "Pinkerton's Secret" is an amazingly visual, character-driven tale that should appeal to a wide range of readers. Fast-paced, exciting and highly readable, this marvelous novel is a well-crafted tale of some remarkable times, but to me, the most fascinating aspect of the novel is Pinkerton. A vital man, vibrant and alive with boundless drive and a strange sort of ambition, America's greatest detective ignores clues regarding his deepest emotions. Betrayed by his own feelings, he's ultimately humbled by the mysteries of the human heart.
"I had done it all in a way I could never have imagined, but who can? Much less imagine that it can end, suddenly, with such stunning finality?"
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
fabulous biographical fiction, March 6, 2008
This review is from: Pinkerton's Secret: A Novel (John MacRae Books) (Hardcover)
In 1856 in Chicago, Alan Pinkerton forms his Pinkerton National Detective Agency by hiring several strong seemingly trust worthy men; women need not apply and he does not expect any will.
He is proven wrong when pretty Kate Warne applies for the position of Pinkerton Agent. Pinkerton says no, but Warne is persistent so he hires her with his plan to give her soft jobs and less pay than his male operatives. However he quickly changes his mind when she turns out to be one of top agents as he gives her increasingly more difficult cases to work. Attracted to one another, they begin an affair that turns ugly once Pinkerton's wife learns that Kate is under the cover not undercover.
This is a fabulous biographical fiction story that provides the audience a deep look at the personal and professional lives of Alan Pinkerton and the first female agent Kate Warne. The story line is action-packed from the onset whether it is in Chicago setting up the agency, on a case in DC leading to the formation of the Secret Service, or working to uncover Confederate spies in the capital. Readers will appreciate this superb historical tale.
Harriet Klausner
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4.0 out of 5 stars
A detective searches for clues to the mystery of love, March 17, 2008
llan Pinkerton embodied a number of American traits. He was a revolutionary, fleeing his native Scotland with his wife ahead of arrest for being a Chartist; he reinvented himself in boomtown Chicago from barrel-maker to private detective, one of the nation's first; he crossed money and power lines working for the railroads and, during the Civil War, for the Union Army and President Lincoln; and made sure everyone knew it, self-promoting himself so effectively that the unblinking eye that was the symbol of his company was detached from his name and entered the culture as the private eye.
He also spoke truth to power, helping run slaves to their freedom on the Underground Railroad, and spoke power to truth, as the company founded by the agitator for the rights of man became a union-buster for the railroad barons. That, too, makes him an American.
Out of all this material, comes Pinkerton's Secret, a sometimes off-kilter "memoir" by Eric Lerner. The Pinkerton in this book is a masterful fictional character. He's a man of strong passions, a cocksure sense of himself, and a view of American history that would warm the heart of a besotted leftist steeped in Chomsky and Zinn. He doesn't think much of the Founding Fathers ("While that addled inventor Ben Franklin and his Yankee friends were going on about tea taxes, Washington and Jefferson and Madison were hiding in some back room of Independence Hall, giggling like girls over the scam they were pulling up here in Philadelphia"); nor of Lincoln, who he called among other things "a snake-oil salesman." "If you cut through Lincoln's twaddle, you found nothing except a cauldron of ambition."
But at heart, he's soft pillows and lace. The lace is made of stainless-steel and spiky, and the pillows are formed from concrete, but it turns out that Pinkerton has a weakness for female approval, particularly from one Mrs. Kate Warne. She was his first female detective, and from the beginning, he was smitten with her charms. During their first interview, as he quizzed her about her belief in god and the need for a detective to deceive, he notes, "Her body seemed to press outward against her dress, her female form demanding my attention."
Let's face it, when you're married to a woman who believes "her primary mission as a servant of God is to prevent Allan Pinkerton from ending up in Hell" and will only have sex with you on the Sabbath, it's not surprising that another woman would draw Allan's eye.
Mrs. Warne got the job.
Pinkerton's Secret takes us on an episodic tour of American history, told completely through Pinkerton's eyes. This cuts both ways. He tells us exactly what he wants us to see -- and from the above examples his opinions can be as bracing as a shot of whiskey, neat -- but he's equally adept at what he wants to leave out. He goes into detail about his abolitionist work before the war, when his house was a stop on the Underground Railway, and how he and his agents uncovered the plot to kill President Lincoln on his way to Washington. There's also nothing about his shoddy intelligence work for Gen. George McClellan during the first great campaign against the Confederations, in which his overestimation of Lee's army gave the general reason enough to delay battle and cry out for more reinforcements.
Instead, between recountings of glorious episodes, Pinkerton describes his relationship with Mrs. Warne, in the words of that time, "grew warm." There are moments of passion --"She lifted her left leg over my hip and reached down for my cock as our eyes remained wide open. Then I was inside her." -- but not nearly as often as you'd think. Because what surfaces is a classic soap opera set-up: they love each other, but she's engaged to Timothy Webster, another one of his agents, leaving him suspended between his deteriorating marriage and his passion for Mrs. Warne.
Because at heart, Pinkerton needed a woman's approval: "when it comes to women, men are meagerly provisioned beasts who must beg for the fulfillment of their needs." The man who, his wife observed bitterly, would violate the law on one hand while upholding it with the other, found himself trapped, whether by upbringing or social code, it didn't matter, when it came to the delectable and alluring Mrs. Warne.
And that, in the end, is the central irony of Pinkerton's story, that America's detective couldn't solve the greatest mystery of all: the needs of the human heart.
* * * *
PS: That was a lovely way to end the review, eh? But it seems I haven't expressed a firm opinion about "Pinkerton's Secret," so let's try again.
I liked Pinkerton as a character. He's dogmatic, profane, and carries that self-assurence that seems to be a hallmark of pre-politically correct America. But I'm not so sure about the other characters. Mrs. Warne, Pinkerton's wife, his boys who grow up to take over the company; maybe because we see them through his eyes, we find it hard to grasp their needs, their opinions. Pinkerton seems to get into the way. This could be intentional. It certainly is realistic. But it does remove the climax from the story. Just as in real life, as we tend to fade away in the end, so does Allan Pinkerton.
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