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HOLLOW CROWN
by David Roberts
Carroll & Graf, January 2003
309 pages
$24.00
ISBN: 0786710527


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

This is the third in the Lord Edward Corinth-Verity Browne series set in England in the 1930s.  It is October 1936 and though the British public have been kept in the dark about the amorous entanglements of  their as yet uncrowned king,  inner governmental circles are well aware of what he's been up to.  A former mistress of the King, Molly Harkness, has made off with correspondence between him and his new love, Wallis, and is threatening to make it public.  Since the letters reveal not only intimate details of their relationship, but also the extent to which their involvement with  Nazi Germany borders on treason, it is imperative that they be recovered.  Lord Edward, a close friend of Molly, is dispatched to try, but before he can succeed, she is murdered and the letters are gone.  Lord Edward enlists Verity Browne, recently returned from Spain, where she witnessed the fall of Toledo and came close to losing her life, in the quest for Molly's murderer and the correspondence, and Verity, who has not recovered from the Spanish ordeal,  reluctantly agrees.

Once again, Roberts successfully evokes the morally ambiguous, even sleazy, political atmosphere of  the period.  It is a time when newspapers conspire with the Crown to mislead the British public for what is seen as its own good, a time when secret service types are becoming increasingly active in domestic life, a time when the loyalties of even the "great and the good" may be uncertain, and a time when the left, especially the Communist Party, is losing its moral clarity and becoming mired in the same sort of political intrigue and thuggery as the Fascists on the right. Roberts finds ways of seamlessly integrating the political and social concerns of the decade without appearing either to preach or teach.  His own politics, while clearly not extremist in either direction, are well concealed. I have a feeling that this series is not more widely read because it appears much more fluffy than it actually is.  Roberts does, it is true, imitate some of the conventions of Golden Age British mysteries (the names of his two protagonists are almost parody) and in this instance, even refers directly to the puzzle mysteries that were in such vogue at the time.  The jacket art likewise gives the impression of light-hearted romp and general silliness.  Nevertheless, beneath the surface lies a serious approach to an historical period that thoroughly shaped everything that came after it and that is curiously, even chillingly, relevant to our own.  This, and an eminently satisfactory mystery, with a surprise solution well within the conventions of the period form, and a nicely modulated love story all make me look forward to the fourth in the series, promised for October.   

Reviewed by Yvonne Klein, June 2003

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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