Customer Reviews

Spend Game

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Having read three other Lovejoy mysteries, Spend Game is far superior to the others (which are still quite good). The English physician who writes under the pen name of Jonathan Gash is a potent combination of having a vast knowledge of antiques and English life. Writing in the first person, as all Lovejoy mysteries are, is challenging, yet "Gash" does it so well. Spend Game starts with lots of action (Lovejoy sees a friend murdered in a staged car crash) and never lags a bit. Very highly recommended.

I sometimes think of Lovejoy, Gash's antiques-cum-detective, as the larcenous equivalent of Angela Lansbury's Murder She Wrote character. Which is to say that were either of them real, I wouldn't want to be a friend or relative for fear of being murdered or suspected of being a murderer. The problem is symptomatic of any mystery series in which the detective is anything but that by trade, as the writer tries to consistently involve the character in skullduggery.

In this episode, an old war-buddy fellow dealer is bumped off only slightly before the book opens, and while Lovejoy witnesses the act, his tendency for self-preservation and the fact that he was currently involved in an adulterous tryst, prevents him from coming forward with what little information he could glean to the police. Of course, Lovejoy wouldn't trust the local constable to sneeze without some peppery remarks from his corner, and the rest of the book goes on like the usual, with Lovejoy achieving vengeance and satisfying his greed in roughly the same equal mixture.

It's not so much Gash's plots that keep me reading these, but the pleasure of reading his undeniable joy in describing antiques and their history. I like to think of these books as much of an education in a subject that I know nothing about as much as pure entertainment.

In this tale, our lovable scoundrel is on the hunt for a precious model of a Victorian steam engine, although he doesn't know that that is what he will find at the end of this particular rainbow. Along the way we, the readers, are exposed to some more Lovejoy cheek. What a lovable villain he is! The description of his past experience in a tunnel is very realistic, and we also discover why tunnels are a main phobia with him. The more we learn about Lovejoy, the better, I think. We know how much he loves his antiques and women, but there is more to the man than that. This is an exciting story, and we find Lovejoy up against some pretty shady characters in his unending pursuit of the perfect piece. Enjoy.

When lovable rogue and slightly shifty antiques dealer, Lovejoy, hears of the model of a 19th century train, crafted by silversmiths, he decides that he must have it at all costs. The model is supposedly buried under tons of earth and rubble, following a huge cave-in in 1847 but Lovejoy's biggest problem is that he suffers from an acute terror of being buried alive, following a near miss experience in his army days, so the thought of having to burrow underground is as bad a situation that he can imagine. As usual, Lovejoy is in a fine old mess with all of his lady friends, and uses them, one against the other in his quest for the engine. He is also even more embattled than usual by crooks and paid thugs and takes a severe hiding, pursued as ever by the local police. It's a real action story, full of fun and dodgy escapades but one which will be irresistible to Lovejoy's many fans.