A REVIEW BY DAVID L. VINEYARD:         


WILL THOMAS – The Limehouse Text. Touchstone, hardcover & trade paperback, July 2006.

WILL THOMAS

   This is the third book in the series by Oklahoma librarian Will Thomas about late Victorian sleuth Cyrus Barker (the ‘Guv’) and his assistant/Watson Thomas Llewelyn who made their debut back in Some Danger Involved followed up by Kingdom Come.

   This time out Barker and Llewelyn follow the trail of a pawn ticket that leads them into the shadowy environs of Limehouse, London’s Chinese district, where opium dens and honest shopkeepers meet, and the influence of the Chinese tong societies and their hatchet men haunts them.

   The pawn ticket leads them to a rare book that conceals an ancient fighting technique, dim mak, long hidden from the west, and Llewelyn and Barker find themselves caught between a killer seeking the ancient wisdom and the dangers of the growing tension between the British Empire and China as well as the mysterious man at the heart of all the crime in Limehouse, Mr. K’ing (and any reader of Sax Rohmer and August Dereleth’s Solar Pons should have no problem identifying him).

    “If what Bainbridge thought is correct, all the deaths that occurred just after New Year may be the work of one killer… the only connection they seem to have had was a book. The book, the book, the Bloody book! Didn’t you say in court it was a boxing manual? Who kills three people over a boxing manual.”

    “It’s rather a special manual, Terence,” Barker explained. “It teaches, for one thing, the way to disrupt the body’s internal functions, killing someone without a sign.”

WILL THOMAS

   Through the smoky dream-ridden opium dens to the back room blood sports indulged in by the high and the mighty, Barker and Llewelyn hunt a killer and try to keep their heads while preventing virtual war from breaking out in the streets of Limehouse. Israel Zangwill, the author of the classic The Big Bow Mystery even features in the plot. (Thomas often features a historical and often literary figure like Zangwill in the books.)

    Limehouse had become enchanted that night. Every wall was festooned with messages in gilt and streamers of red paper and firecrackers. Entranceways that no one had swept for years were now swept and mopped. The drab and mean streets* of the area had now become a fairyland…

   Luckily for them, Barker is an expert on all things Chinese, from the lethal razor sharp pennies he carries in his pockets to the martial arts he engages in. He even keeps a courageous little black Pekingese, Harm, who frequently features in the novels plot, as he does here. Before the game is brought to bay Barker will have to fight a battle to the death in one of those back rooms to save both his and Llewelyn’s life.

   Will Thomas is an admirer of Sherlock Holmes and Doyle obviously, but also familiar with his Nero Wolfe, and Llewelyn is much closer to Archie than Watson, despite his admiration for Barker, his enigmatic boss.

   The books manage a neat blend of action, mystery, and atmosphere that make them a real pleasure to read, as the action moves, the plot twists, and Barker and Llewelyn find themselves in increasingly hot water and trouble. Thomas knowledge of Victorian literature and history also shows in his casual but in depth portrait of his heroes environs.

WILL THOMAS

   These books are great fun, never letting the research get in the way of the action or plot, Barker and Llewelyn a testy and intelligent match as a team, and the observations of just how close our disparate worlds really are a reminder that the more things change the more they stay the same.

    “The Bible is a book. The Koran is a book. Right now, in the Sudan, men are killing themselves over both of them.”

   Playful, smart, fast paced, and involving, this is one of the best historical tec series ongoing, and certainly to become a classic. Once you meet them you will want to get to know Barker and Llewelyn and their worlds better.

    * Should anyone think they have caught Thomas in an anachronism, the term “mean streets” was first coined by Victorian writer Arthur Morrison to describe London’s less wholesome districts, in the book Tales of Mean Streets (1895). Morrison is probably better known today for his stories about Sherlock Holmes rival Martin Hewitt.

    That said, I will grant that in The Limehouse Text Thomas uses the term a number of years before Morrison’s book was published.

       The Cyrus Barker & Thomas Llewelyn series:

1. Some Danger Involved (2004).
2. Kingdom Come (2005).
3. The Limestone Text (2006).
4. The Hellfire Conspiracy (2007).

       WILL THOMAS

5. The Black Hand (2008).

       WILL THOMAS

6. “In progress,” according to the author’s blog, August 2009.