Crosswords

Victoria Cross Mystery #2

by Penny Sumner

London in January is rather bland, and Victoria Cross is glad to escape with the help of an apparent routine order of boredom. She is to find a man who disappeared twenty-five years ago and had a Chinese vase, which was particularly valuable. On her quest, she plunges deep into London in the 1960s, when the boundaries between the underworld and the fine society were still fluid. But before she can ask the right questions, her client, a nightclub owner, is murdered, and her life is also in danger.

For Victoria, London becomes a very hot pavement in January.

Genres: Fiction, LGBT, Crime

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[Frances · Rating 3 out of 5]

Private investigators had a more difficult time in 1994 with no mobiles or computers to aid them in their missing person searches!

[Megan]

In this second and last book in the Victoria Cross series, Tor has evidently finished transcribing her aunt’s Victorian erotica and gone back to her job as private investigator in London. This is disappointing on a couple of levels, at least for me. I enjoyed the academic setting of the first novel and I was intrigued by the work she was doing for her aunt. But for every minus there is a plus.

Tor is hired by a nightclub owner to locate a valuable Chinese vase, which was stolen a quarter of a century before—before she knew its true value. Luckily, the client knows who stole it, so all Tor has to do is track him down. But nothing is ever that simple, is it? By the time the story comes to its conclusion, Tor has had to delve into the gangland nightclub scene of the late 1960s, when celebrities and mobsters rubbed elbows and when murder was just part of the business.

Tor works for an agency and is assigned work by an office manager. This is decidedly different from most other P.I. books I have read. Not only does she have to run herself ragged tracking down criminals, but also has to do everyday stuff like serve summonses or sit in her office and take statements from witnesses. Even the most mundane work is more interesting to Tor than being the archivist she was trained as. I also liked the pace of the plot, which was meandering but not tortuous. Tor has to decide which witness was telling the truth and which was lying ("I’m used to my clients lying to me,” she says.) . She manages to get just enough from each new witness to find the next—and the next.

Tor’s relationship with April is in jeopardy—as are most relationships in this genre. They are planning to move in together, but April becomes standoffish when Tor continually exposes herself to danger. This is old stuff and not done very well. In fact, April is almost a non-character, which is too bad because she showed some promise in the first book. The book also suffers from an overabundance of seemingly unnecessary word play. “Victoria Cross” is a medal for bravery, “Torcross” is a village in England, Tor is hired by Bryton Rocke, who lives in Brighton. There are also references to the title in the crosswords that a couple of the characters in the book enjoy—and in the angry conversations, and in the way that some of the suspects try to cross Tor up with their lies. Or in every speech that Ms. Cross makes. Enough.

With its flaws and its disappointments, the mystery itself and its resolution bring this book into the 3+ range—better than many, but certainly not as good as it could have been.

Note: I read the first—and probably the only—printing of this book, which was published by Naiad.

Another Note: This review is included in my book The Art of the Lesbian Mystery Novel, along with information on over 930 other lesbian mysteries by over 310 authors.