Product Description

Luke Pagan, an ambitious young police officer who speaks Russian, and his unorthodox partner, Joe Narrabone, set out to break up a ring of Russian anarchists on a reign of terror, murder, arson, torture, and blackmail throughout Edwardian London.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #187026 in Books
• Published on: 1995-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 217 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Set more along the lines of a lean spy novel than a police procedural, veteran Gilbert's latest (after Roller-Coaster, etc.) propels young Luke Pagan and Joe Narrabone of the Metropolitan Police into a web of complex geopolitics one year before the outbreak of WWI. As trouble-making Russian immigrants spread terror throughout Edwardian London, Pagan's knowledge of Russian puts him on the case, and he and his wily partner Narrabone find themselves working with?and maybe against?the English ruling class (including a young Home Secretary by the name of Winston Churchill). As the two coppers track three suspected Russian revolutionaries, the Home Office seems to put politics over police work, even when the naked corpse of an immigrant bearing the notice "Let Authority beware" is found hanging in Victoria Park. But are the three Russian suspects really the terrorists? Are they even revolutionaries? Or is the Czarist secret police staging the attacks as a way of turning English public opinion toward deporting Russian emigres? Leave it to Gilbert to keep readers hooked while making his tale reverberate with all kinds of historical chords, including the invention of dynamite and the beginning of the modern intelligence agency.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Luke Pagan, a gamekeeper's son in pre^-World War I England, shows a talent for languages and struggles to master Russian. A squabble with the landowners, however, forces him to abandon his dreams of higher education and become a London policeman. Eventually, he has an opportunity to prove his mettle when London's Russian community gets restless. The leftist Russians want England to take a stand against the czar. As the bolsheviks and anarchists begin to foment trouble, Luke uses his language skills to insinuate himself into the radical community and discover its ringleaders. As usual in Gilbert's always entertaining period mysteries, the atmosphere is palpable, the protagonist is admirable if just a bit naive, and the plot moves quickly and logically. Toss in a bit of sly humor, and one has a thoroughly enjoyable, intelligent crime novel. The conclusion lends itself to the hope of further Luke Pagan adventures. Wes Lukowsky

Customer Reviews

Great Setting, So-So Story
The highly visible presence of political exiles and Jewish refugees from Imperial Russia was a notable feature of turn of the century London. Their visible presence was also a volatile one, as exiles and imperial operatives waged operations and counter-operations on English soil, occasionally culminating in spectacular crimes. Indeed, at various points, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, and Gorky all lived in Whitechapel. Joseph Conrad used this backdrop to initiate the modern spy novel with his 1907 book The Secret Agent, which he based on an anarchist plot to blow up the Greenwich Observatory in 1894. Gilbert sets his brief police procedural in 1911 amidst these budding Bolsheviks and well-armed anarchists, with the Siege of Sidney Street as his historical touchstone.

Luke and Joe are two young London policemen originally from the same rural village who are getting their feet wet in the big city. Following the real life murder of a policeman during a sensational robbery of a jewelry store by an anarchist gang and the subsequent media event of the Siege of Sidney Street, the duo are assigned to the task force put together to watch the Russian émigré community and track down its dangerous elements. (Here, Donald Rumbleow's 1988 book The Houndsditch Murders and the Siege of Sidney Street seems to have been a main reference work.) Their efforts, sometimes bumbling, sometimes crafty, often lucky, are interspersed with policy discussions of their superiors and Home Secretary Winston Churchill, as the government attempts to maintain rule of law.

While from a historical point of view, it is important to understand the constraints the police worked under at the time-most notably being outgunned-the mix of high policy and ground-level footwork doesn't come together particularly well. There are altogether too many mid and senior level policemen characters whose comings and going distract from the story. Many of the bad guys are based on real figures, and in some cases real names are used-although it should be noted that the real life Sidney Street gang was Latvian. Gilbert has obviously studied the period in great detail, and brings it to life, but the story remains disappointingly flat given the exotic material he has to work with. Most of the book is set in London's East End, and as it's geography plays an integral role in the story, one wishes the publisher had included a map or two of the area.