Why should the devil have all the best tunes?
Themes of inequality, forbidden love and personal responsibility weave through a fast-paced narrative in which the location plays a key part. Nation Cymru
The Salvation Army has come prancing and singing from the slums of London to the poorest quarters of Oxford, but along with its red hot gospel preaching and music hall songs it brings a prohibition message which sparks immediate opposition and violence.
An Army soldier – an ex-drunk – is brutally killed and a note suggests that the Salvation Army’s shadowy enemy, the Skeleton Army, is responsible.
With the police unwilling to come between the two forces, Non Vaughan, aspiring journalist and great hope of the Oxford women’s college movement, and Basil Rice, Jesus College fellow and union-sanctioned guardian of the dead man’s family, are compelled to investigate.
But as the threats from both sides escalate, resulting in a second death, Non and Basil realise that they must stop the fighting before it results in an outright war. For with the University’s annual commemoration week fast approaching, the entire city could be engulfed in fire and blood.
Members of the Salvation Army being pursued by the Skeleton Army with its distinctive skull and crossbones banner c. 1882
Review
This is the second book in this series of Oxford Mysteries featuring the independently-minded Non, and Basil, a fellow of Jesus College. I really enjoyed the first book A Bitter Remedy, and the second one is just as interesting. I say interesting because I love history and this book is thoroughly researched with a level of detail that truly immerses the reader in Victorian Oxford. I knew nothing about the Salvation Army’s beginnings, and the fact that it was so much more militant than it is now – I suppose the clue is in the word ‘army’! But the fact it had an opposing faction – The Skeleton Army – was one I didn’t know. The clash of these two groups forms a great background for a murder mystery, with all the excitement of religious ‘glory fits’, the descending of the white dove of the Holy Spirit, and the opposite which is the spirits relied on by the Brewers who fear for their livelihood and are intent on closing down the whole shenanigans.
The second thread of the story is about Non’s attempt to batter her way into the male echelons of Academia, and again this is fascinating history. The lengths that women had to go to for acceptance as men’s intellectual equals, are carefully drawn in this novel. Basil’s struggle with his hidden homosexuality and how that affects his day to day dealings with the college and the crime create another layer to the novel, which is not only a murder mystery but a book about class, about the various freedoms we take for granted and how hard they were fought for and won.
Like all good murder mysteries, the plot keeps the reader guessing as to whodunnit, and there are several twists and turns along the way before the satisfying conclusion. Highly recommended.
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