Customer Reviews

Spectres in the Smoke: A Creeping Narrative

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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.

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.

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.

Tony Broadbent just keeps getting better. (I hope this becomes a BBC movie or mini series because it would fit right into "Jerico," "Inspector Morse," "Foley's War," and "Prime Suspect.") I am enjoying this second book as much as I enjoyed the first.

This is the almost perfect novel for bedtime reading. The type is small and the story moves so slowly and dully that the reader is will drift off to sleep within a few pages.

Jethro is a "car burglar," reluctantly forced into the service of the British government. Jethro is supposed to be a street-smart Cockney in London immediately after the war. MI5's Colonel Walsingham dragoons Jethro into helping, through stealthy burglary, unravel the mystery of a neo-fascist group planning to topple the Labour government.

Had Tony Broadbent stuck to this story alone, "Spectres In The Smoke" might have become a compelling thriller. Unfortunately Broadbent has gone to an extreme in describing Jethro's world, introducing characters and plots that are simply unbelievable and, of course, as patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels, so bizarre sexual encounters are the last resort of novelists who have run out of story.

Broadbent introduces old-time film star David Niven and Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond into the story, apparent for no other reason than that he could.

There are more backstories here than celebrants at a bar offering free drinks. There's Jethro's friend, a denizen of the underworld known as Bugsy Billy, but who is also an urbane lawyer . . . and golly the characters occupy adjoining houses connected by secret entrances. Then there's Jethro's ongoing conflict with a gangland boss named Messima which leads to Jethro protecting his pal Seth with the help of yet another gangland boss, Spotsy. Oh, things just wouldn't be complete without Felicity, the glamourous actress, various lords of the realm, the nascent State of Israeli, a melange of secret groups, a cat that likes to chase feathers dangled by sadistic torturers, lower-class English cuisine, upper-class English cuisine and more, so much painfully more.

In the end, Jethro is nothing but words. For all his derring-do, there is no depth to the character or any of the others. The plot, as noted, is far too convoluted with far too many diversions and distractions.

Is "Spectres In The Smoke" readable? Yes. Is it enjoyable? Yes, in the same sense that finding a recent copy of People Magazine when you've forgotten to bring a book to the dentist's office is enjoyable. Is it exciting. No. But it does beat a visit to the dentist.

Jerry