Spectres in the Smoke: A Creeping Narrative [Hardcover]

Tony Broadbent (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 13, 2005

It's the austere 1948 world of post-war, black-market-riddled England, and Jethro, the cat burglar and jewel thief, has been pushed out onto the rooftops of London again by Colonel Walsingham of MI5.
And so, forced once again to step out from behind his disguise as a part-time stage-hand in London's West End, Jethro does a creep in Mayfair and sets in motion a tale of dark and deadly dealings that mixes national politics with black magic, orgies of abandon, and blackmail.
Things get even deadlier when he stumbles across a royal cover-up and then uncovers a plot to topple Clement Attlee's Labour Government.
And always ever present, looming in the background, are the twin spectres of the growing communist menace and a rebirth of fascism. There are even rumors the Americans are poking their noses deep into things and that a mysterious OSS agent is roaming around London with his eagle eye set on someone who looks a lot like Jethro.
To top it all, Walsingham comes up with a plan---"in Defence of the Realm"---that calls for Jethro to steal his way into the very heart of English aristocratic circles.
However, Walsingham's behind-the-scenes string pulling also has unintended consequences in London's gangland that result in Jethro finding himself up to his neck again in the never-ending battle between two of London's most notorious gang bosses, Darby Messima and Jack Spot.
And all this is just a precursor to Jethro having to do a very serious bit of burglary at a certain very grand country house, the success or failure of which could mean England saved from going to the dogs or spell curtains for Jethro.
In Spectres in the Smoke, Tony Broadbent has created a dark, shadowy vision of post-war London and spun a truly enthralling tale.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As in Broadbent's first post-WWII British spy caper to feature cat burglar Jethro, The Smoke (2002), his second lighthearted thriller finds British intelligence enlisting Jethro's criminal expertise in the national interest. To thwart a resurgence of fascism just a few years after the Nazis' defeat, the thief must recover some compromising records that implicate a member of the royal family in a right-wing conspiracy. Complicating Jethro's efforts to serve his handlers is a gangland war that threatens those dearest to him. Unfortunately, the author fails to match his engaging, roguish hero with a suitable plot. Despite the fast-paced action and diverting appearances by David Niven and Ian Fleming, the last-minute, hairbreadth rescues (including one of an attractive woman apparently intended as a sacrifice) strain credulity and diminish the impact of the political issues raised.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Centered on "creeping," or the art of breaking into houses and museums and stealing valuable goods, the second entry in this series starring a London cat burglar is every bit as tense and fascinating as its predecessor (The Smoke, 2002). The narrator-hero, Jethro, operates in 1948 London, with the city still devastated by the effects of the Blitz and the rationing program. Broadbent's physical descriptions of Londoners crawling out from the ruins are vivid and powerful, as when he likens a street to a mouth with missing teeth. He is also instructive, without being overbearing, on the political and social history of the times. But what will make readers clutch their books a little tighter are the cat burglar's accounts of hanging from ropes outside of homes, dropping in, allowing all his senses to scan the area, and, when trouble looms, pulling off his gravity- and death-defying escapes. So good is this cat burglar that MI5, the UK's intelligence bureau, asks him again (as they did in The Smoke) to do a little breaking and entering for the good of Britain. This time, the job is to nab some records from the headquarters of the New Order of Britain Party, a Fascist group bent on destroying the current Labour government. Comic (and perilous) complications ensue when a band of criminals asks Jethro to steal the same items. Terrific details on cat burglary and embattled London, liberally laced with Jethro's sardonic wit. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books; First Edition edition (October 13, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312290268
• ISBN-13: 978-0312290269
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,262,834 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An unexplored country, April 8, 2006

By 

Alexander T. Gafford "alex" (Midland, Ga United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Spectres in the Smoke: A Creeping Narrative (Hardcover)

This book explores a time and place not well covered in popular fiction - Britain just following the Second World War. The struggle with Germany had left this country destitute and exhausted, yet life went on. The Labor government tried to be all things to all people with little resources and the protagonist is dragooned into the dark corners of how this society must muddle on through. I have no idea if the details of London criminal society are at all authentic, but they seem so. The politics and economics are right in line with what history tells us. The characters are sympathetic and nuanced, motivations complex but sometimes noble. Violence is shown as ocasional but brutal and tension relieved at times by sardonic humor. Over all an engaging look at time usually out of our collective memory.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How did he KNOW that?, February 24, 2006

By 

C. Fischer (Napa, CA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spectres in the Smoke: A Creeping Narrative (Hardcover)

Tony Broadbent takes us back to post war London and makes it live again. With amazing detail and immersing the reader in a language unique to that time and place, we are transported so that his story becomes a permanent mental image of a time, not merely a mystery novel. Think Edward Hopper on America - or Jacques Henri Lartigue on priviledged Europe- images depicting a time now past, but not lost, thanks to the artist or writer. Isn't that what a great book does best? You sit in a comfortable place in your home and - you're gone to another place. We all love it when that happens, and it happened to me constantly in Mr. Broadbent's book. I kept thinking "How does he know that? Has he ever done any of these things? " Doubt it, but I believe he could, if he wanted.

Spectres in the Smoke is a great read and wonderful trip. Highly recommended.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Creep Takes Us Into His Confidence, June 9, 2008

By 

R. Schultz (Chicago) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Spectres in the Smoke: A Creeping Narrative (Hardcover)

This is a richly fact-based, but ultimately fictional, first-person account of a cockney creep's activities in post-WWII England. A "creep," in the vernacular, is a cat burglar.

There is a lot of cockney dialect in these pages. It almost seems to be laid on a little too thick sometimes for the sake of steeping the book in local color. I sometimes doubted that even a died-in-the-wool cockney would interject that much rhyming slang into his conversation. However, a glossary at the beginning of the book will bring the reader up to speed on the meaning of such expressions as "butchers" and "turtles."

Overall though, the reader will be drawn into Jethro's world as he pulls jobs both for Crown and Country, and for himself and his mates. Jethro has the ability to take us into his cocky confidence with a sort of Alfie-like charm. He leans close to let us in on his secrets. But unlike Alfie, this character's main interest is not in womanizing, but in what he conceives as a Robin Hood redistribution of wealth. In fact, there is almost a sort of sexual/moral innocence about Jethro, perhaps in keeping with the general tenor of the late 1940's.

However, the narrative includes at least one steamy sex scene that will probably appeal to both men and women - to men for its rawness, its lack of romantic prelude; to women for its sensuality and female command, and for Jethro's aftermath of distaste with its lovelessness.

Most of the book though is devoted to Jethro's capers. Author Tony Broadbent has an amazing repertoire of knowledge about a master creep's techniques. There are a lot of how-to tricks-of-the-trade revealed here, including ruses, ploys, and the proper use of gelignite. Broadbent even gets the details of lockpicking right, something that few TV and movie scripts did until very recently. Broadbent must either have done a LOT of research, or else had a misspent youth.

Real-life people pepper these pages. You'll meet with David Niven and Ian Fleming, and hear inside information about the abdicated Duke of Windsor. Actually, the allegations made about the Duke's Nazi sympathies are so specific and shocking, I'm surprised that Broadbent isn't in danger of being sued by the Royal Family. However, perhaps considering England's free-wheeling tabloid traditions - anything goes.

This is a jolly good read that will take you back to a time and place in such detail, that you'll feel you're walking with a glim lighting your way through post-War London.