Shrines of Gaiety
London 1926. Kate Atkinson works her literary magic on another historical novel. Nellie Coker (based upon the Soho nightlife “godmother” Kate Meyrick), just released from Holloway prison, is the head of a London family that makes a substantial living from nightclubs and all sorts of associated activities, many of them illegal. Even though she is just out of jail, Detective Chief Inspector Frobisher is transferred to Bow Street police station and is keen to investigate her continuing profitable empire and stop all the illegal sidelines, hence closing it down.
Gwendolen Kelling, just free from the lingering death of a suffocatingly selfish mother, and made unexpectedly wealthy by her demise, arrives in London, and becomes involved, in somewhat unlikely circumstance, in Frobisher’s stratagem to infiltrate the Coker family crime network while on a mission to find a young girl, a relation of a friend, who absconded to London. There are complicated plotlines which Atkinson knits together expertly. The characters vibrate with life and feel entirely credible, making for an absorbing story set in the brittle, glitzy, sleazy post-Great War world of Soho—with the terrible shadow of that war hanging over society and its fragile individuals.
Atkinson has a unique style: an arch, ironically amusing commentary upon the foibles and imperfections of human existence, skewering the motivations and experiences of her subjects, whom she treats with a generosity, humour and insight, despite their often-considerable shortcomings.
The narrative heft does depend upon a number of rather extraordinary coincidences. It is a very amusing book, in Atkinson’s trademark wry, understated elegance. When a group of Coker family members are discussing their brother’s girlfriend, seemingly one of the Bright Young Things, the conclusion is that as she’s not greatly Bright or indeed Young, then she must just be a Thing. Simply a delight to read.
