Lethal Pursuit (Barker & Llewelyn, #11) by
Will Thomas Format: eARC Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction,
historical mystery Series: Barker & Llewelyn #11 Pages: 336
Published by Minotaur Books on November 12, 2019
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Better World Books Goodreads London, 1892—Cyrus Barker is brought into a game of international espionage by the Prime Minister himself in the newest mystery in Will Thomas's beloved series.
Private enquiry agents Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn receive in the mail an unexplained key stamped with the letter Q. Barker, recognizing it for what it is, uses the key to unlock an anonymous door in the alleyway, which opens to an underground tunnel leading to Downing Street.
The Prime Minister has a small task for Cyrus Barker. A Foreign Office agent stole a satchel in Eastern Europe, but was then himself murdered at Charing Cross. The satchel contains a document desperately wanted by the German government, but while the agent was killed, the satchel remains in English hands. With a cold war brewing between England and Germany, it's in England's interest to return the document contained in the satchel to its original owners and keep it out of German hands.
The document is an unnamed first century gospel; the original owner is the Vatican. And the German government isn't the only group trying to get possession of it. With secret societies, government assassins, political groups, and shadowy figures of all sorts doing everything they can—attacks, murders, counter-attacks, and even massive street battles—to acquire the satchel and its contents, this small task might be beyond even the prodigious talents of Cyrus Barker.
My Review:
The previous book in this series, Blood is Blood, while it takes place in Barker & Llewelyn’s present, is very much concerned with the past. Particularly Barker’s past.
This book, while the events of the immediate past – particularly Barker’s injury at the opening of Blood and Llewelyn’s marriage at the end of it – certainly do have their effects on the progress of this story, Lethal Pursuit is definitely a story about their present – and their future.
On the surface – and so many of the books in this series are compellingly different between their surface and what’s going on underneath – this is a story about misdirection. The underlayer is too, but it’s a question about who is misdirecting whom about what – and how much those presentiments of the future are misdirecting the investigation in the present.
The surface story involves a dead man – they usually do, this is a mystery series after all. But it also involves entirely too many departments of the British government, all seemingly trying to put one over on each other while placing the Barker & Llewelyn Agency as ‘piggy in the middle’.
It’s not a comfortable position, not least of all because most of those government departments dislike Cyrus Barker, Thomas Llewelyn, or both, for, well, reasons. Barker has shown them up too many times. He doesn’t show proper deference to the powers that be – which they all believe they are. Barker’s past, including the source of his fortune, is a complete mystery. Llewelyn is an ex-con. Barker is a Scot, Llewelyn is a Welshman, making them both ‘lesser’ in the eyes of those powers. Etc., etc., etc.
Barker knows the job they’ve been voluntold to take is a setup, he knows they’ve been hired because they are expendable AND too many in various departments would be happy to ‘expend’ them or at least blacken their reputations beyond repair.
Llewelyn doesn’t quite grasp what his boss – and now business partner – is up to. He’s just certain it’s going to get them in trouble again. And again. Which it does. If only because Barker is a stubborn arse who is guaranteed to refuse to do things the way he’s been told to do them. He’ll get the job done, but he’ll do it his way – while leaving poor Llewelyn in the dark most of the way.
And it’s the way that’s fascinating. Because the case is, in theory, about completing the dead man’s last assignment. What the government thinks it’s about is either the imperial ambitions of the recently unified German Empire – or the authentication of an ancient text that would shake the foundations of religious faith IF the text ever comes to light.
That the answer is both more and less keeps Barker & Llewelyn on their toes – and the reader on the edge of their seat – from the bloody beginning to the surprising end.
Escape Rating A-: This was my airplane book. I read it on the flight back from Worldcon in Seattle, which means it was also a transition book for me, a way of switching from being immersed in science fiction and fantasy every minute of the day to my usual mix of genres.
This is fitting, as it was also a transition book for the series.
The series transition revolves around the changing relationships between the characters. Back in the first book, Some Danger Involved, Cyrus Barker took Thomas Llewelyn on as his assistant as a bit of a charity case. At the time Llewelyn was an ex-con – for a crime he didn’t commit – and a widower. Ten books later, he’s a partner in the agency, if not necessarily a full partner, and he’s just married the love of his life.
As Barker wants Llewelyn readily available at all hours, Llewelyn has moved his bride Rebecca into Barker’s establishment rather than himself moving to hers.
At the same time, the injuries that Barker sustained in the previous book still plague him. His shattered leg is more-or-less intact but still healing – and will likely never be completely the same again. The shift in the partnership is foreshadowed if not completely acknowledged, as Llewelyn, not yet 30, is becoming the more physically active partner while the injured Barker, well into his 40s, has to step a bit slower no matter how fiercely he intends to fight the tides of change.
Their world is also changing. This story begins in 1892. The ‘game of empires’ among the European powers is leading inexorably to World War I – and the powers that be in Britain are certainly aware of that fact – as is Barker himself.
A condition that relates directly to the case Barker & Llewelyn are hired for, as well as the one that Barker undertakes on their own. Seemingly everyone involved, including Barker, believe that the dead man’s death is part of that ‘game’ – and all the agents and ambassadors react and overreact accordingly.
Not realizing that they are all being played by another party, operating in the shadows, using all their knowledge to move them about HIS chessboard for reasons that are both older and baser than any games of politics or diplomacy.
The macguffin in the case, whose theft causes so much grief and consternation as its location and its provenance are concealed, revealed and never completely revealed, will remind readers of one of the early entries in an entirely different Sherlock Holmes-like series, the third book in Laurie R. King’s Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series, A Letter of Mary, in ways that are both murderous and mundane. And are left just as much – and as righteously and religiously – up in the air at the end.
The case, of course, is solved by the pursuit of means and motives and opportunities. Matters of faith are much less subject to complete and reasoned judgment.
This was, as is usually the case for this reader, the perfect way to be somewhere else while stuck in transit – or anywhere else where there’s no escape and few acceptable or available ways to pass the time. These characters, this setting and their adventures made the otherwise interminable time fly even faster than the plane I was flying in.
Of course, I’ll be back the next time I need a (reading) escape or get caught in a reading slump or simply can’t resist the siren song of this series a minute longer. Book 12 is titled Dance with Death and I’m rather curious to see what makes this entry in the series worthy of a title that could describe ANY of the stories so far. Barker & Llewelyn always ‘dance with death’ in their investigations. This reader is just grateful that Death isn’t partnered with either of them in particular when their cases have ended.
Long may that trend continue!
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