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A Gentleman's Murder (2018)

door Christopher Huang

Andere auteurs: Zie de sectie andere auteurs.

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1509180,890 (3.74)10
"The year is 1924. The cobblestoned streets of St. James ring with jazz as Britain races forward into an age of peace and prosperity. London's back alleys, however, are filled with broken soldiers and still enshadowed by the lingering horrors of the Great War. Only a few years removed from the trenches of Flanders himself, Lieutenant Eric Peterkin has just been granted membership in the most prestigious soldiers-only club in London: The Britannia. But when a gentleman's wager ends with a member stabbed to death, the victim's last words echo in the Lieutenant's head: that he would "soon right a great wrong from the past." Eric is certain that one of his fellow members is the murderer: but who? Captain Mortimer Wolfe, the soldier's soldier thrice escaped from German custody? Second Lieutenant Oliver Saxon, the brilliant codebreaker? Or Captain Edward Aldershott, the steely club president whose Savile Row suits hide a frightening collision of mustard gas scars? Eric's investigation will draw him far from the marbled halls of the Britannia, to the shadowy remains of a dilapidated war hospital and the heroin dens of Limehouse. And as the facade of gentlemenhood cracks, Eric faces a Matryoshka doll of murder, vice, and secrets pointing not only to the officers of his own club but the very investigator assigned by Scotland Yard."… (meer)
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1-5 van 9 worden getoond (volgende | toon alle)
A pastiche of a Golden Age locked-room murder mystery set in 1920s London, where biracial amateur sleuth Eric (born to an English father and a Chinese mother) tries to figure out who killed the newest member of the Britannia Club in the club vault. Author Christopher Huang clearly tries his best to both do right by Eric as someone who is both in society (scion of an old gentry family, wealthy enough to afford membership in a private member’s club, former army officer) and not (he’s subject to a lot of abuse because of his Chinese descent), and to the longterm traumatic effects of trench warfare on so many of the men who served in the First World War.

But the amount of effort put into it doesn’t quite pay off. The plot is a bit plodding, and I never found myself getting invested in any of the characters. The treatment/behaviour of one of the women characters in particular seems taken straight out of an actual 20s/30s mystery, and as psychologically unconvincing as it often came across in period literature, it seems even more so coming from the pen of a 21st century writer. All in all, fine, but I wouldn’t find myself impelled to pick up another book by Huang. ( )
  siriaeve | Sep 18, 2022 |
The butler did it.

Okay, he didn't but I won't give it away. This was definitely a good English murder mystery in the vein of Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayer. You have an excellent cast of characters, twists and turns that keep you guessing, and a proper "I've gathered you all here together to reveal who the murderer is". Classic and a good read. ( )
  pacbox | Jul 9, 2022 |
It's 1924 and Lieutenant Eric Peterkin is a member of a prestigious soldiers-only club in London, like all previous generations of his family. One evening a gentleman's wager is accepted but it results with a member stabbed to death. The previous evening the victim had said that he intended to right a wrong.
Peterkin decides to investigate when he believes that he cannot trust the police officer in charge. Problems arise because Peterkin is half Chinese, and many of his suspects suffer to varying degrees from shell shock.
An interesting mystery, well-written with well-rounded characters. It also seems to capture the English way of life after the Great War very well.
A NetGalley Book ( )
  Vesper1931 | Jul 29, 2021 |
This was supposed to be on "Golden Age" mystery. I suppose it was by definition, but I'm not an avid mystery reader, so I can only guess. The mystery was a murder that took place at a gentleman's club, The Britannia, in London. The protagonist was a half-Chinese, half-English, ex member of the Royal Fusiliers, who gained entrance in the club because of his WWI service. This book had it all: PTSD, racism, and sexism. What is didn't have was character development; I could have cared less about any of the characters. I gave it 3 stars because of it's post WWI atmosphere. ( )
  Tess_W | Jan 17, 2021 |
I enjoyed this book very much, and I hope that it will continue as a series. I read on Amazon that it is being considered for television.

Back in the 1970s, when I was in my 20s, this era was very unpopular, and worse, a lot of people I knew seemed to this that the Victorian era stretched back to the dawn of civilization. Some people had a lot of trouble understanding that Victorian/Edwardian values did not describe all ages up to the 1930s, and were never entirely uniform, in any case. Being something of a history buff, this drove me crazy. So I am glad to see a book that has an unusual character as the hero, and also has the somewhat different outlook of someone not entirely western. His father was not the stern, tyrannical patriarch of so many novels, but a loving father whose children found him very approachable. His sister, Penny, is asserting the independence of the more modern woman that is coming into vogue, especially since the devastation of the war left a serious imbalance between the number of men and women, and far fewer women could rely on getting married. (On that subject, I recommend Singled Out : How Two Million British Women Survived Without Men After the First World War by Virginia Nicholson.)

Eric Peterkins, the main character, is half-Chinese, and looks it, and some of his fellow club members, particularly Mortimer Wolfe, who for some strange reason has never been murdered, make sly digs about it. This is unfortunately an era when wily amoral Celestials are favorites as villains. Eric works reading mystery manuscripts for a publisher, and this is another ongoing irritation for him. Eric, although he comes from a gentlemanly family with a long tradition of service to the Empire, always sees himself as an outsider. In addition to solving the mystery, Eric also comes much more into his own in the course of the story.

Eric's friend, Avery Ferrett (Huang had fun with some of these names) seems like a very odd choice of friend for Eric, having spent the war in Argentina "for his health." Well, it did protect him. Perhaps they had known each other before the war, perhaps they enjoy their difference. Avery represents the strong spiritualist enthusiasm of the day, when so many people longed for contact with the loved ones they had lost. Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini fought on this issue until it destroyed their friendship. (see Final Séance : the Strange Friendship Between Houdini and Conan Doyle by Massimo Polidoro.)

What is very poignant is the belief of the characters that World War I was indeed the "War to End All Wars." (on that subject, I recommend The Peace to End All Peace : The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East by David Fromkin. We often hear about how the disastrous Treaty of Versailles led to German remilitarization, but this book details how it created problems shaking the Middle East to this day.) ( )
  PuddinTame | Apr 10, 2020 |
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» Andere auteurs toevoegen (5 mogelijk)

AuteursnaamRolType auteurWerk?Status
Christopher Huangprimaire auteuralle editiesberekend
Corkhill, RaphaelVertellerSecundaire auteursommige editiesbevestigd
Kilchling, VerenaVertalerSecundaire auteursommige editiesbevestigd
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Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis. Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
Crime is terribly revealing. Try and vary your methods as you will, your tastes, your habits, your attitudes of mind, and your soul is revealed by your actions.

— Agatha Christie
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie.

— John McCrae, “In Flanders Fields”
No Chinaman must figure in the story. Why this should be, I do not know, unless we can find a reason for it in our Western habit of assuming that the Celestial is over-equipped in the matter of brains, and under-equipped in the matter of morals. I only offer it as a fact of observation that, if you are turning over the pages of a book and come across some mention of "the slit-like eyes of Chin Loo," you best put it down at once; it is bad.

-- Ronald Knox Best Detective Stories, 1928
I can make a lord, but only God can make a gentleman.

-- King James I
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The Britannia Club stood on King Street, a respectable limestone facade among respectable limestone facades, with a brass plaque that nobody had looked at in decades; if you had to stop to check the address, you were clearly in the wrong place.
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"The year is 1924. The cobblestoned streets of St. James ring with jazz as Britain races forward into an age of peace and prosperity. London's back alleys, however, are filled with broken soldiers and still enshadowed by the lingering horrors of the Great War. Only a few years removed from the trenches of Flanders himself, Lieutenant Eric Peterkin has just been granted membership in the most prestigious soldiers-only club in London: The Britannia. But when a gentleman's wager ends with a member stabbed to death, the victim's last words echo in the Lieutenant's head: that he would "soon right a great wrong from the past." Eric is certain that one of his fellow members is the murderer: but who? Captain Mortimer Wolfe, the soldier's soldier thrice escaped from German custody? Second Lieutenant Oliver Saxon, the brilliant codebreaker? Or Captain Edward Aldershott, the steely club president whose Savile Row suits hide a frightening collision of mustard gas scars? Eric's investigation will draw him far from the marbled halls of the Britannia, to the shadowy remains of a dilapidated war hospital and the heroin dens of Limehouse. And as the facade of gentlemenhood cracks, Eric faces a Matryoshka doll of murder, vice, and secrets pointing not only to the officers of his own club but the very investigator assigned by Scotland Yard."

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