The Mangle Street Murders

The Mangle Street Murders by M.R.C. Kasasian
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It’s the London of 1882. When Mrs Dillinger approaches Mr Sidney Grice—Britain’s foremost personal detective—with a plea that he exonerate her son-in-law, an ironmonger accused of murdering her daughter, he refuses outright. It is only when Miss March Middleton—his new ward who has only recently arrived in the metropolis—agrees to pay for his services that he accepts…with disastrous results for everyone concerned.

This wonderful, fast-paced Penny Dreadful is the first in a deservedly well-loved series, one that I came to when by chance I happened to pick up one of the later books, and it was a pleasure to meet all the regular characters again, this time on their very first outing.

So what can you expect? Well, there are a number of grisly murders, with the murder scenes described in gory, vivid detail. There’s a generous dollop of humour, most of it black. There’s a fair amount of indignation at the position of women in Victorian society. There are plenty of twists. And there is an excellent narrative voice in the form of March Middleton, a very modern young woman, who provides the perfect counterfoil to her cantankerous guardian. I can honestly say it was right up my street.

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Betty Church and the Suffolk Vampire

Betty Church and the Suffolk Vampire by M.R.C. Kasasian
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The year is 1939 and, as Britain prepares for coming war, Betty Church prepares to return to her home town of Sackwater in coastal Suffolk to do battle of her own—as a police inspector, no less. How will she, a woman, be received into this traditionally male realm by her fellow officers?

Fans of M. R. C. Kasasian’s Gower Street Detective series (of which I am one) will love his new creation. Not only is Betty Church logical and tough, she is also March Middleton’s godchild—a good thing, too, since she is about to face a most puzzling series of murders, which may or may not have something to do with one of her constables’ past.

The cast of rude mechanicals in Betty’s charge ensures that Mr Kasasian can continue the absurdist comedy for which he is renowned. Be it the corpse she finds that turns out to be only her sleeping sergeant, or Woman Police Constable Dodo Chivers, who takes every statement quite literally, humour abounds. Where Dodo is concerned (like Mr Grice before her in the Gower Street novels), it can send conversations off at increasingly surreal tangents, which can require a careful reading if you’re to get the joke.

Her bumbling colleagues aside though, Betty also has a wealth friends who are quietly but delightfully developed as characters—fixtures, I hope, for many journeys to come. I especially liked Captain Carmelo (her ex-boyfriend’s Maltese father), Jimmy (her ex-boyfriend’s nephew, who considers her to be his aunt), and Dr Tubby Gretham and his wife. There has even been speculation on Twitter that Mr Kasasian himself pops up in the role of Betty’s father, an unpopular dentist who can hardly be civil to his own daughter, let alone to his dwindling number of patients. As for the mystery element, there are some particularly grisly murders, a lot of blood, and an extremely enticing red herring. More than this I dare not say for fear of spoilers.

One of the great pleasures of reading an M. R. C. Kasasian novel is that nothing will be quite as you imagine it should be, whether it’s a character’s name, their appearance, their background, or even their interpersonal relationships—and with Betty Church and the Suffolk Vampire, Mr Kasasian takes this to a whole new level. Within the cozy mystery genre his voice is unique. If you delight in meeting a truly new kind of character, you will certainly delight in this. Be warned though; Victorian sensibilities are a thing of the past and the ripeness of some of the language may come as a shock.

If you enjoy comedy like this, you might also enjoy (although they are not Crimes & Thrillers) James Hamilton-Patterson’s Cooking with Fernet Branca, Patrick Dennis’s Auntie Mame (or better still—if you can manage to get your hands on a copy—Little Me), and even perhaps Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall. Fans of the Grinder-Snipe twins will relish in Kenneth Williams and Charles Hawtrey’s Julian and Sandy from the vintage BBC radio series Round the Horne. Varder the big bona lallies on him!

Many thanks to @MRCKASASIAN, Head of Zeus Books @HoZ_Books, #KasasianCrew, and #NetGalley for providing me with a reviewer’s galley proof.

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Death Descends on Saturn Villa

Death Descends on Saturn Villa by M.R.C. Kasasian
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

This was an unexpected find, not least because it’s set in my own genre and era. It’s 1883 and when London’s foremost personal detective Sidney Grice is called away to Yorkshire on a case, his goddaughter and ward Miss March Middleton decides to become London’s first foremost personal lady detective with disastrous results to herself.
Like many a Wilkie Collins, the first-person narrative is shared between characters, and, just like Wilkie Collins, Kasasian doesn’t mind injecting a lot of humour. The style, which is like no other I’ve ever read, careers between absurdist comedy and high Gothic. Although they both work, I’m not sure they always sit well together and the change can be a little unsettling, especially when it comes mid-narrative. And yet the story is always grounded in first-class research.
The characters are wonderful, right down to the slovenly maid, Molly (even if in real life “nobody would not never speak this way, never not”). Your heart soars when she’s allowed to become something more than a comic cypher.
As for the mystery element, there are some truly puzzling accounts of the book’s various victims apparently putting themselves to death, with equally ingenious, intricately set-up solutions—which again seem to be based on scrupulous research (Uncle Tolly’s bedroom; Mrs Prendergast’s corsets).
Since this is the first time I’ve delved into this series, I have no idea whether the author routinely ends his books with a character reflecting on the events some sixty years later (1943), or whether this was unique to this one, but here he poignantly juxtaposes his novel’s subject matter and themes with the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jews.
I am looking forward to reading more.
But that’s just my own humble opinion…what do you think? Do let me know!

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