DEATH ON THE PEARL RIVER (Ben Canaan #2)
A.E GOLDIN
Pushkin Vertigo (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$14.99 ebook, available now
Rating: 3.75* of five
The Publisher Says: Ben Canaan returns in this darkly gripping stand-alone adventure mystery set in Hong Kong, sequel to the acclaimed Murder in Constantinople!
Ben Canaan is riding high on the recent string of cases he has solved successfully on the payroll of Her Majesty’s Executive. Then a notorious crime boss is found murdered on the city streets, the latest in a series of brutal killings targeting the most powerful men in the opium trade.
The scale of the danger is global. To track down the culprits and prevent more blood from being shed, Ben is sent out to the newly-founded British colony of Hong Kong: a lawless frontier town on the southern shores of China's Great Qing Dynasty. All the victims have had ties to the prominent trading firms that use the Pearl River and the South China Sea as their base of operations—ranging from the firms’ heads, to high-ranking partners, supercargoes, merchants, even sailors.
Ben is plunged headlong into a labyrinthine conspiracy, set against the backdrop of an empire in collapse and a sweeping civil war. As his hunt brings him closer to the truth and the ruthless corporate interests that want him dead, Ben is forced to choose between what is necessary and what is just.
Alfred Hitchcock meets Indiana Jones, this immersive, globe-trotting historical mystery is the second installment in the acclaimed Ben Canaan Mysteries series. Thrillingly paced and filled with enchanting historical settings, this series provides all the nostalgic reading pleasure of classic Sherlock Holmes.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: It utterly blows my mind to realize Hong Kong as we know it now is so very young as a city. It does not bear thinkiing about what is happening there now, or what that portends for its inabitants' future. Still, being a Crown Colony was no picnic...as Ben's busy finding out in this wildly improbable, very kinetic tale of derring-do in support of the British opium trade.
Ew.
Of course Ben's not responsible for this global scourge. He's been told where to go and whom he should see by his bosses. Of course there's another terrible choice of woman for him to fall in love with, this time an opium widow grieving her husband.
All the expected gadgetry, intrigue, secrets to uncover that his bosses would really rather he didn't. And then there are the fights Ben needs to win, battles to wake up to instead of the ones he was told he'd be fighting. It still barely hangs together at the plot level and then only if one exercises good will and willingness to overlook how a lower-class Jew in 1850s England comes to be trusted with such important tasks as Ben is.
It all comes out okay in the end. It has to in a series mystery/thriller. Please not this entry does not have any significant characters from the first story. If you're looking for cozy sciibygroups, this is not the read for you. Like the Bond or Bourne books, Ben's the main point of continuity in these stories.
Enjoyable as fluff, but a second outing so soon after I had read the first might not've been rge greatest idea...pace yourself.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
MURDER IN CONSTANTINOPLE (Ben Canaan #1)
A.E GOLDIN
Pushkin Vertigo (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$14.99 ebook, available now
Rating: squeaks to 4* of five
The Publisher Says: Alfred Hitchcock meets Indiana Jones in this acclaimed, globe-trotting historical mystery about a wayward Jewish kid drawn into a sinister plot
This entertaining historical mystery is the exciting debut novel from London-based musician and screenwriter A.E. Goldin. Thrillingly paced and with an enchanting historical setting, it launches an unforgettable new hero in a series that provides all the nostalgic reading pleasure of classic Sherlock Holmes.
London, 1854. 21-year-old Ben Canaan attracts trouble wherever he goes. His father wants him to be a good Jewish son, working for the family business on Whitechapel Road, but Ben and his friends, the 'Good-for-Nothings', just want adventure.
Then the chance discovery of an enigmatic letter and a photograph of a beautiful woman bring Ben an adventure more dangerous than anything he’d imagined. Suddenly he is thrown into the heart of a mystery that takes him away from everything he has known and all the way to Constantinople, the jewel of an empire and the centre of a world on the brink of war.
Ben’s only clue is 3 words: ‘The White Death’. Now he must find what links a string of grisly murders, following a trail through kingmaking and conspiracy, poison and high politics, bloodshed and betrayal. In a city of deadly secrets, no one is safe—and one wrong step could cost Ben his life.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: Like the TV version of The Wild Wild West that ran from 1965 to 1969 (I'm still salty it got canceled by sustained pressure from lamebrained Congressmen), the book has trouble picking a tone. It does not feel entirely intentional, so gives an impression of lurching from sweet to sour to violent to off-the-wall daffy. Had the author, a screenwriter, recalled the true statement "every reader is the director of their brain's movie" there might have been smoother transitions among fewer tonal shifts.
How did a small-time chancer whose petty crimes were the impetus for him to stow away on a Royal Navy ship heading for the Crimean War; then after jumping ship in Constantinople, how'd he end up in the iddle of international intrigues well above his social station? How did he blend in well enough not to be rumbled minunte one? Let alone how did he get the information he's needed for the solutions to immensely consequential international intrigues?
Don't look for logic is how. Either buy in or leave the table, because this game is mad, it's incredible, and it's either going to charm you or piss you right off.
Me, I'm more charmed than any other response. I like Ben's verve and bravado. It makes him exciting to follow around. I don't think a sleuth should be reckless with impunity because life ain't like that. I do enjoy someone screwing up and learning from the screwing up, as failing upwards is relatable to anyone who's ever done anything that semi-succeded knows. Ben has that infuriating knack that real people I hate have of knowing just the right person to accomplish the thing that most needs doing so he can figure a puzzle out.
There is no slowing down either. Infodumps are quite rare and mostly very short indeed. It helps that I needed the ones I got. Plenty of female badassery on display, and integral to the plot...a certain portrait subject in particular. I enjoyed Ben's encounter with a marvelous Florence Nightingale, who factually was where she's met by our (anti)hero at a most amusingly delicate juncture.
Think of this as an 1854 European version of The Wild Wild West featuring a Jewish young man with a love for gadgets and a penchant for picking the wrong woman, and there you go. Again, id any of that is not causing you to break out in purrs, stay or go away soonest, it won't suddenly become your cuppa.
