"… beneath the servility accorded to a master there is always malice." (pg. 314)

A fine example of Alexander Baron's talent and appeal, King Dido is an accomplished character-driven story with a social conscience. It is a very bleak novel – particularly in its too-abrupt ending – as it follows the rise and fall of Dido Peach, who ascends rather accidentally to prominence in the criminal underworld of his slum in the East End of London (the year is 1911). Dido is a fascinating character and a tragic one – as Ken Worpole's introduction notes, there is something of the Heathcliff about him (pg. 15). His rise is facilitated not by ambition but by righting wrongs done to his family, and from then on it is a combination of his pride, his family ties and his social status as one of the working-class 'scum' in the eyes of many, that eventually dooms him.

Baron takes this opportunity to comment – perceptively but never didactically – on the nature of power and influence, not least in how the powerless react to power. This can take the form of petty resistance (see the quote with which I opened this review) or bovine acceptance. The latter is where Baron's social conscience shines through. Dido is a tough but fair man, honest and simple, who just wants to do right by his family. This code of honour leads him to overthrow the local gang leader and he finds himself taking the unwanted mantle. "Dido was a law-abiding man… The fight with Ginger had been fated. He still could not question its rightness. But since then his life had not been his own." (pg. 246). His attempts to better himself and to return to a clean-living life are foiled by class prejudice, the environment in which he lives and his own lack of conviction, itself seasoned by his life of deference to those 'above' him. Baron seems to be using Dido's arc to represent the trials of all those whose lives' course is not their own to determine; when he speaks of "all the inimical forces that had driven him to the slaughter" (pg. 349), there is an empathy here for Dido's rut that would not be out-of-place in modern socially-conscious portrayals of crime-ridden neighbourhoods like The Wire.

This is heavy stuff and, as I have said, it is a bleak novel. It is almost Dickensian in style, but without that author's occasional penchant for sentimentality. Nevertheless, Baron is a gifted writer and the book never feels plodding or hectoring. In fact, it is a very smooth and easy read, helped no doubt by Baron's keen sense of character and setting. When you're reading King Dido, you feel like you live amongst these characters. But if it is character and setting that gives the book an accomplished quality, it is its sense of social compassion which gives it endurance and vitality beyond just literary craft. It is this which validates Baron not just as a wordsmith but as an artist. Towards the end of the novel, as Dido's options are slammed shut on him, he realizes that "it was fight or go under now" (pg. 274). Perhaps that was always the case: this hard-nosed assessment could be applied to all of his 'choices' in the novel. Indeed, it could be a mantra for the whole working class, who remain – in Dido's time, in Baron's time, and in ours – as the fighting classes and, sadly, the struggling classes. ( )

This is the first book I have read by Alexander Baron (1917-1999 having heard very positive things about his work. He was a renowned London author, best known for his novel The Lowlife (1963).

His first novel, From the City, from the Plough (1948), was a best seller. It was based on Alexander Baron's own war service, fighting across France from the Normandy D-Day beaches. Baron went on to write many London novels which were similarly based largely on personal experience and observation.

King Dido (1969) is set in the years just before World War 1 and it's a gripping thriller about crime in the East End. It tells the story of Dido Peach, who is drawn into the violent world of protection rackets and gang warfare. Peach, a contradictory character, has his late father’s violence and strength combined with his mother’s concern for living a respectable, decent life. He rules his two younger brothers with a rod of iron and tries to live up to his mother's expectations. His family’s attempt to lead a virtuous life brings them into conflict with a local family of thugs led by the monstrous Ginger Murchison. Dido Peach and Ginger Murchison engage in a vicious and memorable street fight.

The novel abounds with memorable characters, not least Inspector Merry - a cunning, ambitious and relentless policeman.

The book is full of extraordinary period detail and vividly evokes the world of the East London slums. This alone makes it a special book, however the period detail is also aligned to a genuinely gripping story and an array of unforgettable characters. A superb book. I cannot to read more of Alexander Baron's work. ( )