The Trumpeting Angel

The Melbourne Trilogy #2

by Marshall Browne

Early life in colonial Melbourne Australia

paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Browne was an international banker - he racked up 37 years with NAB - and one of his forebears was a founder of Australia's first bank. But the former paratrooper who once hankered for a spell in the French foreign legion loved writing and had three books published in Britain in the early '80s when writing was still ''an occasional Sunday activity''. Then came a couple of historical novels about Melbourne in the late 19th century, The Gilded Cage and The Burnt City. It was with The Wooden Leg of Inspector Anders, published in 1999 and featuring his one-legged policeman investigating the murder of a magistrate who was himself investigating the killing of an anti-Mafia judge, that he really struck a chord with readers. It won the Ned Kelly award for a first crime novel and was shortlisted in the 2002 Los Angeles Times book awards. Browne then turned his attention to Nazi Germany, writing three novels starring Franz Schmidt, an auditor, as their hero. Schmidt has only one eye, and Browne told Bookmarks he was interested in damaged heroes. He included Hideo Aoki, the hero of his 2006 novel, Rendezvous at Kamakura Inn, a disgraced Japanese policeman intact physically but not psychologically. Browne wrote three novels about Anders, and Australian Scholarly Press, which published The Gilded Cage in 1996, will bring out the fourth later this year. The book was at the editing stage when Browne died. But only 10 days earlier he had a bookshop signing for The Sabre and the Shawl, the novella published by ASP last month that The Age review described as ''a romantic evocation of the historical time and place, with great characterisation and an exploration of the creative process''. Publisher Nick Walker said Browne was delighted by the queue of people who bought books but exhausted by the time he got home. When people assembled for a celebratory drink he told them in his characteristic self-deprecating way, with a smile on his face, that they were looking at the ghost of Marshall Browne.



Series:
* Inspector Anders
* The Melbourne Trilogy
* Frank Scmidt

Reviews

[Lynda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marshall Browne writes this historical novel of pre-Federation era Melbourne with what looks like polished ease, but is in reality intricate, imaginative plot-setting and detailed historical research that resonates sharply with who we still are today. Browne isn't afraid to lift a rock in his characters' lives, and see what's crawling underneath. This, along with the intrigue and suspense, keeps the pages turning. The regular sprinkling of little historical vignettes, gleaned from contemporary Victorian newspapers, are sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, and have been artfully selected to speak to the reader on many levels! The more I read 'The Trumpeting Angel', the more I remembered enjoying the same sort of mystery, suspense and historical immersion with Fergus Hume's 'The Mystery of A Hansom Cab.' I can't remember now if I had the film or book version of the Hansom Cab, but if you enjoy 'The Trumpeting Angel', you should also enjoy Hansom Cab.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for our f2f bookclub meeting last month, this book triggered a fantastic, full-table, sleeves rolled up discussion. Which is always a very very good thing.

Whilst overall personally I thought this was a pretty good book, and a particularly interesting one to be reading in the week when our Prime Minister decided to take on the Leader of the Opposition in a long-overdue calling out of his behaviour, there were themes in the book that really really resonated.

There were also aspects that were less successful, as pointed out by members of the bookclub, why was their a need to connect Female Suffrage with Lesbian themes? Another element of the book that really raised some discussion was the ending - whilst some readers felt it was satisfactory, there was another group who found it disappointing. A cop-out for the villain if you like.

But, regardless of the minor nitpicks and some of the things that really worked, a long, fruitful and fascinating discussion. Great bookclub book.

[Carolyn Gandouin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes my compulsive drive to finish every book I start is a problem. I found the ending of this one about as satisfying as "and then she woke up, and it was all a dream".

I was also slightly put off by the names Angela Carter and Phillip Larkin given to characters in the story - was the author trying to make anachronistic literary allusions here, and if so, why?


I liked the setting - Melbourne, on the eve of Federation - very much, - hence the three stars.

[Aira]

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