Last Rights (Francis Hancock Mystery 1)

WOW! I'm so glad I found Barbara Nadel & her Inspector Ickmen series in modern-day Istanbul. Now I'm thrilled she's begun another series about the adventurous mysteries of the WWI shell-shocked, bi-racial, bachelor undertaker Francis Hancock & his family & friends who are surviving the 1940 Luftwaffe blitzing of London's East End where. incidentally, the author lived as a child & must have heard her elders' stories. This is the era & place into which I was born, although I was evacuated into the country to spend many a night in the air raid shelter under the tennis court, along with a dozen other evacuees, Land Girls & the adults who cared for us. Each Barbara Nadel book is rich in atmosphere, culture & history, & not for the faint of heart. If, like me, you want your mysteries to be unusual & adult as well as being packed with characters, drama, humor & surprises, then dive in!

This was an impulse purchase. I picked it up because I have been generally aware of Nadel's work without ever having read anything that she has written. Her most famous books feature a Turkish detective named Çetin kmen. This book was the first in the series featuring detective/undertaker Francis Hancock. Last Rights is set during The Blitz, and is clearly interested in using outsider perspectives to explore social relations and the society of the time. As a half-caste character in a racist time, Hancock has access to both sides of London. Nadel pays a lot of attention to the poor, to Jewish immigrant communities, to the ranks of the outcast. I admired the book, but I found that it did not really move me. The historical detail seemed accurate and admirable. Her perspective was fresh and well done. Still, the feel for the violence often felt academic and not quite as interesting as the rest of the book. I would be curious to read where the series progresses after Last Rights.

Undertaker, Francis Hancock is subject to severe panic attacks as a result of his service in WW1, where he saw his friends literally sucked into, and smothered by the mud at Flanders. Because of this, every time the siren warnings of enemy air attacks sound, he is seized by such a state of panic that he cannot bear to be enclosed by walls, and so stays outdoors, despite the falling bombs, and runs until he is exhausted. During one of these episodes, a man staggers up to him. claiming that he has been stabbed by a woman, but with Francis being in such a shaky mental state, he brushes him off and runs on. Later, when the body of the same man is brought to him for burial, he recognises him and vows to make up for his lack of concern by informing the police that the man had claimed to have been stabbed. This really starts the story of four sisters, all named after jewels, who had lived in this area in one of the worst parts of London's East End, their connection with a family of thugs and wife beaters and their link with a previous murder. It's totally unlike any other murder/mystery I've ever read, peopled with very diverse characters, from different walks of life...I thoroughly enjoyed it!