Good holiday read: By Gaslight
By Gaslight is a riveting novel that takes the reader from the fog shrouded streets of Victorian London in 1885, to the lawless diamond mines of South Africa and the grim battlefields of the American civil war.
The writer is the Canadian author and poet Steven Price. Price, who lives in Victoria B.C., is the author of two award-winning books of poetry. By Gaslight is his second novel.
Two compelling characters are at the heart of this book. Adam Foole, an accomplished gentleman thief with impeccable manners and a hidden past, and William Pinkerton, a dogged American detective who walks the streets of London with a naval Colt revolver at his side believing, “there was not a thief who did not fear him.”
Pinkerton has travelled to London on the hunt for the elusive master criminal Edward Shade. Shade had been a fixation of William’s father, who was the founder of the famous Pinkerton detective agency. William has inherited this fixation and believes Shade is behind a number of unsolved crimes. However, there are some who doubt the existence of Shade believing him to be more fiction than fact. Pinkerton is intent on proving them wrong.
Foole and Pinkerton are initially drawn together by the investigation of a murder and they form an uneasy alliance in order to solve it. The victim is Charlotte Reckitt, who Pinkerton believed could lead him to Edward Shade. She was also the former lover of Adam Foole who had first met her in South Africa when she and her uncle were the accomplices of Foole in a plot to steal diamonds. Foole had recently returned to London at her request for help.
The search to find Charlotte’s killer takes Foole and Pinkerton into the underworld of Victorian London. Price brings this world to vivid life as Foole and Pinkerton crisscross the city in hansom cabs in search of answers to the mystery of Charlotte’s murder. This tour of London’s underbelly includes opium dens, séances, prisons cells, pick pockets and murderers and is capped by a harrowing visit to the city’s vast sewer network which is home to some of the cruelest criminals in London.
As the investigation progresses it becomes apparent to the reader that Foole and Pinkerton have a deep connection that is related to their past. In bringing these connections to light the story skips backward and forward in time in order to show how the two have much more in common than they realize.
In addition to Foole and Pinkerton, the book is populated by an array colourful characters. These include menacing henchmen, juvenile criminals, opium addicts, fake mediums, bent lawyers and unscrupulous gang bosses. In short, just the type of people you would never want to meet in real life but make for an engaging story.
Price has written a sprawling novel that would be an ideal book if you are looking for something to curl up with over the holiday season.
By Gaslight (731 pages) is published by McClelland & Stewart.
