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Book review: A Few Right-Thinking Men (Sulari Gentil)
I haven't got a good picture for this one - I read it in ebook and the ebook doesn't even have the cover illustration on the first page, only as a thumbnail.
This book is very skilled historical-setting crime fiction. We find ourselves in 1930s Sydney, and Rowland Sinclair is being murdered. It turns out this Rowland Sinclair is an uncle of the Rowland Sinclair who, the cover promises, will be our main character. Rowland (junior) is the son of a pastoralist empire; his older brother has retreated to the country after the war, leaving Rowly in command of the city house. Rowly sees fit to populate this house with artists and communists, much to the dismay of his housekeeper. He trails his lodgers to assorted political rallies but essentially regards the leftist movements as a bit of a joke. Having gone home for his uncle's funeral, he finds his brother involved in right wing semi-secret agitation, which he also regards as mostly a joke.
Rowland begins to suspect that his uncle may have been caught up in right-wing politics, and with the aid of his lodgers, goes undercover, claiming he wishes to paint a portrait of Eric Campbell for the Archibald prize. He uses the name of one of his lodgers for this, and has assorted narrow escapes as he bumps into people who may recognise him as Rowland Sinclair. Earning the trust of Eric Cambell and the New Guard, he uncovers a plot to kidnap NSW Premier Jack Lang, and the mystery of his uncle's death resolves alongside the historical narrative of the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Francis de Groot's disruption of the ribbon ceremony.
Things to like about this book: it's _incredibly_ well crafted historical fiction. It cleaves closely to historical persons and events, and uses them as key components of the mystery plot rather than backdrop. I thought Kerry Greenwood was good (and she is), but this is something else - this is inserting a murder mystery, and attendant fictional characters, right into the midst of historical intrigue. I'm beyond impressed.
Characters are fun; I particularly like Rowland's friend Edna, a free spirit lady artist, although I was tired of 'Rowly pines after woman who he believes will never be interested in him' already before it got spelled out. Disappointing lack of non-straight characters, though. I chafed a little at Rowland's clueless upperclass-hanging-out-with-communists ways, but I guess that's a necessary trope - somehow Bert and Cec keep talking to Miss Fisher, just as Rowly's friends do him.
The chief problem I have with the book is that I got the strong sense the _author_, as well as Rowland, thought the New Guard were funny. And the Old Guard were funny and well-meaning and maybe a bit right. These are historical groups, about whom I knew surprisingly little, but I checked and Gentil has depicted them accurately. There's an afterward where she talks about being fascinated by the 1930s Australian extremist movements, and it's clear she does think they are, essentially, funny. Whereas I read the scenes she was setting and was *chilled*. A communist/fascist civil war was ready to break out at any moment in Sydney. People honestly believed communists were lighting bushfires to bring down the agricultural heartland. That's... not funny. That's terrifying.
Maybe it was quaint and funny, when the book was written. It was published in 2010, so I guess was being written in the Rudd years. It /was/ pretty hard to imagine a fascist uprising in 2009.
This book is very skilled historical-setting crime fiction. We find ourselves in 1930s Sydney, and Rowland Sinclair is being murdered. It turns out this Rowland Sinclair is an uncle of the Rowland Sinclair who, the cover promises, will be our main character. Rowland (junior) is the son of a pastoralist empire; his older brother has retreated to the country after the war, leaving Rowly in command of the city house. Rowly sees fit to populate this house with artists and communists, much to the dismay of his housekeeper. He trails his lodgers to assorted political rallies but essentially regards the leftist movements as a bit of a joke. Having gone home for his uncle's funeral, he finds his brother involved in right wing semi-secret agitation, which he also regards as mostly a joke.
Rowland begins to suspect that his uncle may have been caught up in right-wing politics, and with the aid of his lodgers, goes undercover, claiming he wishes to paint a portrait of Eric Campbell for the Archibald prize. He uses the name of one of his lodgers for this, and has assorted narrow escapes as he bumps into people who may recognise him as Rowland Sinclair. Earning the trust of Eric Cambell and the New Guard, he uncovers a plot to kidnap NSW Premier Jack Lang, and the mystery of his uncle's death resolves alongside the historical narrative of the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Francis de Groot's disruption of the ribbon ceremony.
Things to like about this book: it's _incredibly_ well crafted historical fiction. It cleaves closely to historical persons and events, and uses them as key components of the mystery plot rather than backdrop. I thought Kerry Greenwood was good (and she is), but this is something else - this is inserting a murder mystery, and attendant fictional characters, right into the midst of historical intrigue. I'm beyond impressed.
Characters are fun; I particularly like Rowland's friend Edna, a free spirit lady artist, although I was tired of 'Rowly pines after woman who he believes will never be interested in him' already before it got spelled out. Disappointing lack of non-straight characters, though. I chafed a little at Rowland's clueless upperclass-hanging-out-with-communists ways, but I guess that's a necessary trope - somehow Bert and Cec keep talking to Miss Fisher, just as Rowly's friends do him.
The chief problem I have with the book is that I got the strong sense the _author_, as well as Rowland, thought the New Guard were funny. And the Old Guard were funny and well-meaning and maybe a bit right. These are historical groups, about whom I knew surprisingly little, but I checked and Gentil has depicted them accurately. There's an afterward where she talks about being fascinated by the 1930s Australian extremist movements, and it's clear she does think they are, essentially, funny. Whereas I read the scenes she was setting and was *chilled*. A communist/fascist civil war was ready to break out at any moment in Sydney. People honestly believed communists were lighting bushfires to bring down the agricultural heartland. That's... not funny. That's terrifying.
Maybe it was quaint and funny, when the book was written. It was published in 2010, so I guess was being written in the Rudd years. It /was/ pretty hard to imagine a fascist uprising in 2009.