Trumpets
Sound No More
Non-series
Jon
Redfern
Rendezvous
Crime (Trade Paperback)
ISBN-10: 1-894917-40-5 (1894917405)
ISBN-13: 978-1-894917-40-7 (9781894917407)
Publication Date: October 2007
List Price: $19.95
Synopsis (from the publisher): In 1840, the theatre world in London is shocked by the brutal killing of one of its youngest and most successful entrepreneurs, Mr. Samuel Cake, found bludgeoned in his bachelor house with few leads. Inspector Owen Endersby is called upon to apprehend the culprit before Christmas Eve, just six days away. The case soon involves street vendors, downstairs servants, moneylenders and the greatest performers of the London stage. Without the help of fingerprinting, blood analysis, or any other technique of the modern-day detective, Inspector Endersby must root out the villain any way he can—by disguise, break-and-enter, bribery, mail tampering and physical force. London in 1840 is a brutal city. As the investigation moves into the darker realms of human behavior, Endersby faces instances of child abuse, child labor, madness and sexual deviancy.
Review:
In 2002, Toronto author and college instructor, Jon Redfern, won the
prestigious Crime Writer’s of Canada Arthur
Ellis Award for Best First Novel
for his debut effort, The Boy Must
Die.
As an encore he has won the CWC Arthur
Ellis Award for Best Novel for
2008 for his meticulously-researched Victorian age murder mystery, Trumpets Sound No More,
starring Detective Inspector Owen Endersby, a member of the
newly-formed London Metropolitan Detective Police Force. Endersby, as
Redfern's readers will soon discover, has all of the charisma, skills
and sleuthing smarts to become a long time center stage performer
should Redfern decide to keep him around.
Besides his intuitions and intelligence, Endersby has other
characteristics for a successful police force career. In the Victorian
England of the shabby streets, dingy taverns and dark alleyways he
frequents, he knows how to ferret out the characters most likely to
have bashed theatre manager Samuel Cakes head to a pulp with his own
cane. He knows how to find them by using guile and disguises, by
tricking them into giving up information and, if necessary, to use an
occasional cuff to the ear to jog a recalcitrant recollection. He knows
his way around London too, including the theatre district and
particularly backstage and downstairs at the Old Drury, the grande dame
of London’s theatres in the 1840s. Despite being given a case
of arson to resolve as well as a one week deadline, December 18 to 25,
for solving Cake’s murder, and having to deal with his
overbearing Superintendent, fifty-year-old Endersby knows how to get
the job done without any of today’s forensic assists
– just patience, critical analysis, a liking “to
ponder the scene,” his “passions for truth and
justice,” a willingness to walk miles to find a clue or
harangue a suspect, and all the while suffering “the grime of
his livelihood on his clothes.” And as he searches the
theatre district and beyond for a murderer and an arsonist, he finds
killers can travel in packs, lunatics can fan more than just fires,
actors can play multiple parts, on and off stage, and with or without
alcohol and drugs, theatre managers can be as motivated by power and
sex as by money, and a stage-struck fourteen-year-old homeless waif and
her dreams can both go up in flames while Queen Victoria and her
Christmas pageant entourage watch in horror.
Tough on the crimes and criminals of his time and constantly tussling
with his Superintendent, Endersby has a softer side too. He’s
obviously devoted to his forty-year-old wife Harriet, fancies the
candied chestnuts she prepares for him, pieces together elaborate
wooden puzzles of French design, and he suffers from gout in his left
foot, the intensity of which measures the success or failure of his
fact-finding – all attributes for the memorable detective
Redfern has created. The settings for the Old Drury and the
contemporary theatre offerings are memorable too, and the dialogue and
language of the compelling story are ideally suited to the age. And
while the trumpets in this novel may sound no more, it would be a shame
if they also signalled a swan song for Detective Inspector Owen
Endersby.
Special thanks to M. Wayne Cunningham (mw_cunningham@telus.net) for contributing his review of Trumpets Sound No More.
Review Copyright © 2008 — M. Wayne Cunningham — All Rights Reserved — Reprinted with Permission
Have you read Trumpets Sound No More? How would you rate it?
Mysteries by this author ...
The
Boy Must Die
ECW Press (Hardcover), April 2001
ISBN-10: 1-55022-453-0 (1550224530)
ISBN-13: 978-1-55022-453-5 (9781550224535)
Trumpets Sound No More
Rendezvous Crime (Trade Paperback), October 2007
ISBN-10: 1-894917-40-5 (1894917405)
ISBN-13: 978-1-894917-40-7 (9781894917407)
Omnimystery
keywords for Trumpets Sound No More
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Location(s) referenced: London, England.
