David Ashton (1)Reseñas

Prolonged with little forward motion to the light thread connecting the crimes and I just couldn't stay interested enough to finish. Glad I didn't wait to spend an audible credit on it.

Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde has returned to Edinburgh to bury his father. An old woman is brutally murdered and the White Devils and Scarlet Runners, rival gangs of medical students are causing mayhem. Inspector James McLevy, the Thieftaker, and his faithful constable Martin Mulholland once again, investigate. Using his intimate knowledge of Edinburgh and his psychological insights into the minds of the main characters, McLevy works his way to the killer as always.

David Ashton's books are a delight. The characters are well depicted and easy to imagine so they come alive. The plots are intriguing, and even if you identify the culprit early on the story never disappoints. This book was no exception.

Not content with playing with the detective James McLevy, Ashton turns his attention to Jean Brash, Mistress of the Just Land, a high class brothel. After the New Year's Day celebrations a body is found in the Just Land, one of their clients. Well aware that this could lead back to them they decide to investigate, while McLevy is investigating first one and then more similar deaths.

It's complex and interesting and the reasoning is pretty good.½

Enough dialect that it could probably do with a glossary of terms, I guessed from context that Thrapple meant throat but it could have been made clearer.
It's the story that starts with a prostitute dying and continues through the mean streets of Leith parish in Edinburgh where Inspector McLevy plies his beat as the first detective

A minor spoiler: I was a little put off by the Serpent and his abilities but then I remembered Richard Mansfield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Mansfield

based on history it sometimes plays fast and loose with facts but was an interesting read.½

What do you do when you find the corpse of a judge in your brothel?

Fortunately, Jean Brash, madam of Edinburgh's finest House of Negotiable Affection, knows the answer.

This is a spin-off from Ashton's Inspector McLevy series, featuring Jean Brash (who appears as a secondary character in the main series) as the protagonist. This is the first David Ashton novel I've read, although I've had the McLevy series on my radar for a while, and I'm pleased I found this one.

What I Liked
I liked Jean: she's a businesswoman who has climbed up from the bottom of the ladder. She did it by being tougher than anybody else, and by having an ability to spot and opportunity and the guts to take it. But through all of that, she keeps a sense of perspective and a sense of responsibility for her people. I hope Ashton will write more books concentrating on Jean.

Ashton also seemed to get the atmosphere of Victorian Edinburgh - to me, it felt dark, cold, and wet, with a realistic muckiness. Some historical novels come across too clean and sanitised: this was not one of those books.

Ashton also writes good walk-on characters - interestingly, particularly women. There are several women in this book with their own lives, and their own troubles and goals. I particularly liked one scene between a father and daughter late in the book; you'll know why when you get to it. It's unusual to see an author give relatively minor characters some personal growth. And in such a satisfying way, too.

What I Liked Less
I found Ashton's rather whimsical writing style was a bit of a barrier to really connecting with the characters. It was amusing at times, and gave the books a unique feel - but, still, I was interested enough in the characters themselves that it was more of a distraction. But not enough of a distraction for me to read another Ashton book, so not that much of a problem.

Conclusion
A solid four-star read, and I'm hoping that further Jean Brash mysteries will follow.

David Ashton has written books and radio plays based on the(real) Inspector McLevy, a policeman in what in Victorian times was the wild docklands of Leith, then near, now part of Edinburgh. Key to the plot is McLevy's suspiciously close(at least suspicious to his superiors: as readers we know his heart is pure and incorruptible!!) relationship with the local 'bawdyhoose' keeper, Jean Brash (he just likes her coffee).

I like the writing, the setting, and whilst this isn't misery lit, there's no sense that Ashton romances the poverty of most people's living in the docks at this time.
This was at least a hundred pages too long for me though. The lengthy italicised flashbacks were not my cup of tea either.

I'll stick to listening to Siobhan Redmond and Brian Cox play the characters on the radio.

Not quite what I expected. I'd heard later series of the radio show but not this although it is supposed to be an adaptation. This is more of a Victorian political conspiracy saga than the street detective story that I remember. The familiar characters are all there but there is a solid strand concentrating on Gladstone, Disraeli, Victoria, and a senior fictional political figure. There's a degree of the whodunnit but it's not as strong as it would be in a drawing room mystery.

Entertaining, if slightly repetitive, Victorian police procedural. The core characters are overused and underdeveloped. 20 March 2016

The book begins in Edinburgh in 1880 with the closure of a case that began with the murder of a butler nearly a year before. The story is told with the narration flitting between current events and those that had taken place in the previous year. Occasionally we also get a glimpse of McLevy's childhood for one of the characters in the current tale is Herkie, his childhood nemesis.

McLevy's sergeant, Martin Mullholland, is in love, and he has bought the ring, but his beloved, Emily is well below him in social status, and as luck would have it, her father is an unbending and unsympathetic man.

A warehouse fire has resulted in the contents of the warehouse being incinerated and in the middle of the ashes, a very charred corpse. The warehouse owner is filing an insurance claim and the insurance assessor is Robert Forbes, Emily's father. McLevy believes the fire is arson, and that the warehouse owner is involved in fraud. However Forbes, a former policeman, decides to approve the claim.

This is a multi-stranded plot, and it took me a time to grab hold of the individual strands, so to speak. They are cleverly manipulated towards a conclusion, but things do not always go well for Inspector McLevy. Along the way we have time to consider how policing methods have changed.

I'd never heard about real-life Victorian policeman and author Inspector McLevy before spotting The Inspector McLevy Mysteries at my local library -- let alone that there were plays about him. Still, I like historical mysteries and BBC radio dramas on CD, so I decided to give it a try. The two dramas here are from the first series. (There are at least ten.)

'The Second Shadow': there's a counterfeiter at work in Edinburg. McLevy and Constable Mulholland must catch the wily man in charge. He thinks he's much smarter than the police, but he doesn't know McLevy well enough.

'The Burning Question': McLevy and Mulholland's search for a murderer in hiding is hampered by a vigilante group. Their founder is a pastor, so it should be no surprise that the group is also against prostitutes. McLevy tries to warn madam Jean Brash that she and her brothel, 'The Happy Land,' are in danger. She's not listening. The pastor preaches non-violent solutions, but will that keep his vigilantes from turning into a mob? (If the title makes you expect torches, feel free to expect -- but I'm not going to reveal whether there will be any pitchforks involved.)

I enjoyed the cast and the cases. The second one also pleased me by giving me the tune to a song I'd only read about: 'Charlie is my Darling'.½

Radio plays are a new format of entertainment for me, even though they are far from being a new medium of storytelling. When I found out that my local library has the first 7 series of the Inspector McLevy Mysteries available as downloadable audiobooks, I figured now was a good time to dip into radio plays. Radio plays do make for a different - and quite enjoyable - style of story telling. Gone are the descriptive details one is so used to seeing in written books. The market place is 'experienced' by the background noises provided and I admit that it is more exciting to hear a rock being thrown through a glass window than it is to read about it happening. The character personalities shine through. McLevy's brusk manner, sharp temper and lack of patience is brought front and center, as is the bristling personality conflicts between McLevy and his superior Lieutenant Roach and the more laid back personality of his country raised constable, Mulholland.

Inspired by the real-life memoirs of a Victorian police inspector in Scotland, James McLevy, the stories provide a lot of period specific information around the socio-economic situation of 1860's Edinburgh, relations with England, the criminal justice system of the time period - where sheriffs handed down judgements, not judges - as well as the divisions of the classes within society and even some religious aspects. I found it fascinating - and disgusting - how solving the theft of a joint of meat from the kitchen of a prominent member of society was to take precedent over solving the murder of a prostitute and how vigilantism lead by a religious leader - which lead to property damage - was so difficult for the police to quell. What I really love about the stories - besides the great banter between McLevy and Mulholland and McLevy and the mistress of the fancy house of ill-repute, Jean Brash - is that each story is only approximately 40 minutes in length, making them easy to dip in and out of if between books or in my case, when a current audiobook read is missing some of its files.

I have already downloaded series 2 and look forward to more adventures walking the beat in 1860's Edinburgh.

A Financial Times review wrote 'McLevy is a sort of Victorian Morse with a heart, prowling the mean wynds and tenements of the endless fascinating city. David Ashton impeccably evokes Edinburgh so vividly that you can feel the cold in your bones and the menace of the Old Town's steep cobbles and dark corners'.

I'm not sure I would go as far as the Victorian Morse bit, but James McLevy as recreated by David Ashton is certainly an interesting character. Ashton's recreation of Victorian Edinburgh makes me glad those times have passed. The plot of SHADOW OF A SERPENT is a complex one and contains some authentic-feeling portrayals of Disraeli, Gladstone and Queen Victoria. Someone is out to prevent William Gladstone from becoming Prime Minister at any cost. Ripper-like murders of prostitutes have begun on Edinburgh streets.

This is the debut title of a series that looks as if it will be popular particularly with those who enjoy crime fiction with a historical setting.
Fantastic Fiction lists
Inspector McLevy Mystery
1. The Shadow of the Serpent (2006)
2. Fall from Grace (2007)
3. A Trick of the Light (2009)
4. Nor Will He Sleep (2013)
5. The Painted Lady (2013)
End of the Line (2011)

I think SHADOW OF THE SERPENT has some of the problems of debut title: the plot is at times too tortuous and a little dark. The historical details at times take over, putting the crime fiction into the background. There a few threads that seem to me to go unresolved.

This is a murder mystery set in mid and late Victorian Edinburgh and featuring the Queen, Disraeli and Gladstone and his family. While these would seem to provide the elements for an interesting read, I couldn't get on with it in practice. The fictional characters are uniformly unlikeable and the writing style rather opaque. It was beginning to feel just not worth the effort to wade through and I have given up around half way through. 2.5/5½

"Inspector McLevy of the Detective" is a striking addition to the cast of Edinburgh crime fighters, and he shares a lot of the "thrawn" nature of Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus. However, McLevy plies his investigative career in Victorian Edinburgh, a city of dark closes and alleys, particularly in Leith which is where McLevy's patch lies. A thriving port, Leith has a lurid and vibrant night life catering to the needs and desires of foreign and domestic sailors and dockers.
The novel opens with the discovery of a brutally murdered corpse - a working girl who has been felled with an axe. The lugubrious McLevy is one of the first officers on the scene, accompanied by the long-suffering Constable Mulholland, and the sheer brutality of the attacks lends then additional vigour in their determination to identify and capture the culprit.
McLevy is reminded of a similarly ghastly murder some thirty years ago , when he was a new constable accompanying his mentor, Sergeant Cameron, and we are given several flashbacks to earlier phases of McLevy's life and career. The first suspect is the victim's ponce (or "pounce" as the Leith vernacular has it), a characteristically unwholesome wretch. However, subsequent evidence suggests that the killer might actually be a gentleman.
At the same time, former Prime Minister William Gladstone is in Edinburgh making speeches for the imminent general election in which he will be standing for the Midlothian constituency. Amazingly, a solid body of circumstantial evidence starts to emerge connecting Gladstone to the crime, and McLevy is determined to challenge him.
Meanwhile Gladstone's successor as Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli (now ennobled as Lord Beaconsfield) is on the Isle of Wight, staying at Osborne House with Queen Victoria, united in their hatred of Gladstone and their fear that he might secure a return to power.
Ashton manages these various threads adeptly, and weaves an innovative and engaging story out of them, with a skilful denouement.
All in all a very welcome addition to the Edinburgh crime noir oeuvre.½

James McLevy is a maverick police Inspector patrolling one of the toughest areas of Edinburgh in the 1880s. His disdain for authority, his empathy with the criminal classes and his focused analytical mind place him in that awkward position for his station Lieutenant - a policeman you don’t want because he is so hard to manage, but a policeman you must have because he solves the most diffcult of cases.

The McLevy character is based on a true-life policeman who worked in Edinburgh in the first half of the 19th century and published several books about crime detection and is thought to have been an influence on Arthur Conan Doyle in creating Sherlock Holmes (although there is little of the Holmes influence in this book, except for the use of Constable Mulholland as the Inspector’s foil and companion). McLevy in this incarnation started as a radio play character and there have been several series displaying his talent. This is David Ashton’s first novel about McLevy.

The writing is intelligent and evocative of a city with an underworld as degraded and degrading as anything London can offer. McLevy’s inner life is depicted well, his motivations and predilections forming from a whole rounded character. Mulholland provides what comic relief there is and may yet become as good a policeman as his mentor.

The story revolves around political machinations of the highest in the land (someone wants to discredit Gladstone on the eve of his election victory), drifts into Victorian Gothick with a possible Ripper-a-like before settling on a super-villain in the Blofeld mould.

I enjoyed this book because it marries action, plot and drive (a ripping yarn) with good writing revealing the lives of characters at al levels of society.