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Tag Archives: political intrigue

Royal Assassin: M, King’s Bodyguard

20 Monday Dec 2021

Posted by Novelhistorian in Reviews and Columns

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"no--and furthmore", 1901, book review, Britain, diplomacy, Gustav Steinhauer, historical fiction, inner life, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Niall Leonard, political intrigue, Queen Victoria, religious prejudice, Scotland Yard, thriller, William Melville

Review: M, King’s Bodyguard, by Niall Leonard
Pantheon, 2021. 260 pp. $27

It’s January 1901, and Queen Victoria lies dying. Her German grandson, Kaiser Wilhelm II, has come to pay his last respects, a fact well known to anarchists, the more violent of whom would use the queen’s upcoming funeral to take one or more royal heads. Chief Superintendent William Melville of Scotland Yard’s Special Branch, already tasked with security at the funeral, now has even greater responsibility.

William Melville, head of Scotland Yard’s Special Branch, 1894, from a scan of an engraving in The Graphic, an illustrated weekly (courtesy Wikimedia Commons; public domain)

Further, the most likely assassin quickly demonstrates a ruthlessness and tactical skill not usually associated with long-haired bomb-throwers. And since the funeral will take place in a week, a national event of utmost importance, Melville has very little time to hunt his quarry. Every move he makes risks exposure in the press, which could cause a disaster with international complications.

This elegant premise drives an utterly satisfying thriller of high-stakes police work and cold-blooded politics. First among its several pleasures ranks the story, in which absolutely nothing goes as planned, and in which Melville, a thorough professional of excellent instincts, nevertheless makes costly mistakes. He’s human, in other words, but it’s more than that. As with all good thrillers, this one sets a brief timeframe and then shortens it, so that each red herring he chases costs him precious hours, as does every occasion in which the villain outwits him.

Consequently, the narrative reads as if Leonard invented “no — and furthermore”; even better, all the obstacles and adaptations to them feel plausible. In another twist, Melville’s chief ally on the ground is Gustav Steinhauer, a member of the kaiser’s retinue, capable in a tight spot, yet a liar about his role on the emperor’s staff, his past, and perhaps even his origins.

So it’s a classic setup, in which our hero doesn’t know whether the people whom circumstance forces him to trust are actually working against him. Likewise, Melville’s boss, an incompetent who owes his position to lineage and political connections, would love to send his subordinate packing. Both men are Irish, but Melville is lower-class and Catholic, therefore an embarrassment to his superior’s pretensions. He’s waiting for Melville to fail.

Another pleasure of M, King’s Bodyguard is its voice, for Melville’s a good example of a narrator who bows to convention outwardly, only to have subversive thoughts. At times, he seems a wee too progressive for a man of his time and position, perhaps more suited to our present age than Edwardian Britain. Even so, you have to like his sardonic commentary, as with his observations about anarchists, one of whom, a nonviolent believer, supplies him with information. “Mother of God, but these idealists make it so hard on themselves. They may sneer at those of us who have faith, but at least we Catholics can get absolution for our mistakes; they flog themselves daily with scourges of their own making.”

In similar fashion, Melville lets fly to himself about the visiting emperor, corrupt members of the ruling class, or, as in the following passage, a hospital, an emblem of moral self-righteousness:

Grey winter light seeped through the high windows of Whitechapel Union Infirmary, illuminating the neat rows of iron beds arranged on either side of this long room. Its whitewashed brick walls were bare except for a plain wooden cross high up at one end, big enough for a fresh crucifixion should the need arise. The place was clean, at least, if the eye-watering reek of carbolic was anything to go by.

I also enjoy the political intrigue, which involves the diplomacy leading up to the alliances that later form the background for the First World War, my favorite historical era. That lends the novel a genuine air, as does the very real fear of anarchists, who’ve killed various heads of state in the preceding years. One criticism: I’m not sure the anarchist characters here would have taken time out to soapbox in otherwise violent scenes. Still, I appreciate Leonard’s attempt to integrate anarchism into the narrative, rather than simply deploy it as a convenient device. He’s done his homework, and overall, the narrative wears it well.

I wasn’t entirely startled to learn, from the author’s afterword, that William Melville is a historical figure. But it did surprise me that Steinhauer is too — and that his writings, thirty years after the fact, provide the story.

At the end, you get the idea that Melville, having realized the extent of the espionage threat to Britain, will take action, which will no doubt require further adventures. Count me in.

Disclaimer: I obtained my reading copy of this book from the public library.

In the Madman’s Court: Wolf on a String

11 Monday Mar 2019

Posted by Novelhistorian in Reviews and Columns

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1599, Benjamin Black, book review, historical fiction, Johannes Kepler, John Banville, literary fiction, mystery fiction, narrative tension, political intrigue, Prague, Rudolph II, the occult

Review: Wolf on a String, by Benjamin Black
Holt, 2017. 306 pp. $28

As the year 1599 draws to a close, an impoverished German scholar named Christian Stern has wangled an introduction to the Prague court of Rudolph II, king of Hungary and Bohemia, archduke of Austria, and Holy Roman Emperor. Called eccentric by some, mad by others — in whispers, of course — Rudolph shows more interest in magic and alchemy than in governing. Christian has read widely in the occult arts and considers them hogwash, but he’s willing to play the happy acolyte to ingratiate himself with His Majesty in hopes of patronage for natural philosophy—science–like the emperor’s other hirelings, Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe.

Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s 1591 painting of Rudolf II as Vertumnus, Roman god of the seasons, growth, plants, and fruit. The emperor liked the portrayal (courtesy Skokloster Castle, Sweden, via Wikimedia Commons)

The chestnut about being careful what you wish for applies here. No sooner has Christian entered Prague than he stumbles across a corpse of a young woman dressed in a velvet gown, wearing a gold medallion around her neck. Robbery can’t be the motive, and her attire suggests she’s well born. But when he brings the death to official attention, to his surprise, he’s beaten and imprisoned for the crime:

Bells in countless churches were tolling the hour; it seemed to me I had never in my life heard so bleak and comfortless a sound. The thought came slithering into my defenseless consciousness that I might never be released from this foul dungeon, unless it was to be taken out on a freezing midwinter morning much like this one and marched to some grimy corner of the castle keep and made to kneel there with my neck on the block, where my last sight of this world would be that of the hooded headsman testing the edge of his blade with a thick thumb.

Luckily, Rudolph smiles on Christian, and he’s released, but not to serve justice or kindness or logic. Rather, the emperor believes in a prophecy that a “new star,” a sign of good fortune, will cross the firmament. Who better than someone named Christian Stern (Stern means “star” in German) to represent these glad tidings? And there could be no better way to prove his worth than to solve the murder; the victim was the court physician’s daughter, one of Rudolph’s mistresses. Besides, the emperor can’t trust anybody else. Christian implicitly understands that the killing has immense political implications, though, as a newcomer, he has no way to know where they lead.

“To the gallows,” replies just about everyone he talks to, most of whom make no secret of their desire to see him swing. Christian can never tell whether their animosity results from his exceedingly rapid rise, how they perceive their self-interest, plain viciousness, or a combination of all three. All he can see is that he’s stumbled into a power struggle between Felix Wenzel, His Majesty’s high steward and the official who had him arrested, and Philipp Lang, the subtle, devious high chamberlain. Allying himself to either may well be fatal, but the day will come when Christian must choose sides. His predicament causes frank amusement among the courtiers, spiced by his amorous adventures, which, though risky, are common knowledge. How pleasant to be the source of merriment.

Black, a pseudonym for John Banville, the famous novelist, has told a gripping story whose tension never flags, and which has the ring of literary and historical truth, even though he made most of it up. He’s captured the timeless tale of a young man on the make, and this one’s so dazzled by the money, finery, and sexual favors on offer that he’s distracted from his task to solve the murder, a loss of focus that seems true to life. Christian has some leeway in that Rudolf’s easily distracted too, but that won’t last forever, and the mercurial emperor’s whims must be honored. Black has also re-created Prague in all its filth, lice, mud, grandeur, cruelty, and hardship, which puts you in the narrative and doesn’t let go.

The title comes from a remark by Kepler, who appears in a marvelous cameo, full of braggadocio and insight. He explains to Christian that if you bow a violin in precisely the wrong way — a remote likelihood for a skilled musician, yet still possible — you produce a sound like a wolf. What a perfect metaphor for Christian’s situation, potentially sublime yet fated to evoke a terrifying threat with only the slightest misstep. Black never lets his protagonist — or the reader — forget that.

Disclaimer: I obtained my reading copy of this book from the public library.

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