A Case of Spirits

It's been three years since I read one of Peter Lovesy's Sergeant Cribb books. The policeman's adventures are light and diverting, and more interesting as a glimpse into certain aspects of late Victorian life than as straight mysteries. Here, Cribb finds himself immersed in the spiritualism fad because several seance-goers have been burgled while communing with the dead. When an up-and-coming medium dies while in an electrified chair (an instrument to contact the world of the beyond), Cribb and his plodding assistant Constable Thackery change their investigatory focus from burglary to murder. A Case of Spirits is a passable mystery with several amusing character sketches, particularly that of a well-born spinster who turns out to be more important to the plot than one would guess upon first meeting her.

Invitation to a Dynamite Party

Peter Lovesy followed up my favorite (so far) Sergeant Cribb mystery with what I think is the weakest. Invitation to a Dynamite Party starts with Cribb receiving an introduction to bomb making and Irish Nationalism.  The suspected bombers have murdered one policeman, and a second - Cribb's faithful but not too bright Constable Thackery - seems to have become a mole.  After some intensive instruction in explosives, Cribb manages to ingratiate himself with the criminal crew and prevent (rather than solve) a high profile murder.  It's an adequate mystery, but it just didn't grab my attention.  Read it if you're reading the series and don't like missing an installment, but don't go looking for Invitation to a Dynamite Party.

Mad Hatter's Holiday

Peter Lovesy's fourth Sergent Cribb novel plays with the format a bit.  After three straightforward, slightly comic, Victorian police procedurals, Lovesy waits until the midpoint of Mad Hatter's Holiday to introduce Cribb and the faithful but not particularly bright Constable Thackery.  Instead, the novel starts from Albert Morcrop's point of view.  Morcrop is a telescope salesman who uses his beach holiday to turn his telescope on the passing crowd.  He becomes obsessed with Zena Prothero, a young woman married to a much older doctor.  A doctor with a son from a prior marriage and a habit of walking out with other women after sending his wife to bed with a sleeping potion.  When parts of a woman's body and Mrs. Prothero's coat are found buried on the beach, the local police suspect the worst and call Scotland Yard for help.  Cribb, of course, solves the murder with an appropriate number of twists and turns.  He solved it, but I didn't - a rarity, as is the short (220 pages) length.  Mad Hatter's Holiday is the best installment so far in Lovesy's entertainingly brisk historical mysteries.

Abracadaver

I think I'll put the Sergeant Cribb mysteries into the "commute book" category.  They're light, entertaining, but not too taxing at 7 am or so engrossing that they can't be put down when I pull into the station after 20 minutes.  Abracadaver fits the mold - an entertaining trip backstage at Victorian music halls where performers' careers are being murdered by sabotage.  Sergeant Cribb decides to investigate so he and Constable Thackery are watching from a box when the strongman's bulldog attacks him.  They help him to his rented room, only to disappear the following day.  They find him, along with the other disgraced performers, preparing for their return to the stage in an 'after hours' show for the elite; a show which ends in death.  Cribb eventually solves the crime, and I found both the identity and motive of the murderer unlikely.  I still enjoyed Abracadaver for the same reasons I enjoyed the previous installments in the series.  Peter Lovesy amusingly depicts a segment of the Victorian entertainment world.

The Detective Wore Silk Drawers

A few months ago, Deadalus Books had a buy-four-get-one-free mystery sale. They had the next, hard-to-find book in Sharan Newman's Cathereine LeVendur series so I picked four random titles to justify the shipping and take advantage of the sale. Although I didn't realize it, two of the books were the first two on Peter Lovesey's Sergeant Cribb series, written in the 1970s and recently reprinted.

Set in the 1870s, the series features an analytical but essentially underrated Scotland Yard detective. As Sergeant Cribb is mulling over a pint in his local, a man gives him a tip on a body - a headless corpse that has washed ashore. Upon examination, Cribb discovers that the victim was probably a prizefighter and since that sport had recently been outlawed, believes that the crime is larger than a single murder. The titular detective, though, is not Cribb but Detective Jago, a well-born amateur boxer estranged from his family and stuck in a desk job at Scotland Yard. Jago infiltrates the prizefighting ring while Cribb and the plodding Constable Thackery investigate from London. The headless body is actually a bit of a red herring - the main murder occurs later in the book and while there are only two suspects, both have adequate means and motive to keep the audience guessing until Cribb solves the crime.