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Restless Souls
‘Theory, whether wanted, asked for or needed, was what Penny did best. He had a theory for all things.’
Restless Souls plots the pathway of jaded art history lecturer R. I. Penny.
Upon reading about the death of actress Kate Considine, found dressed as Ophelia from Millais’s painting, Penny feels complicit. Indeed, for Penny, trouble is never far away – when a file left in his pigeonhole evidences fraud in the University, he hides it.
Bursting with swagger and vulnerability, Penny is questioned as a matter of routine by two detectives, Lucy Freeman and Richard Hart. But Penny is quickly convinced he can out sleuth Hart, and recruits an old friend Dove to help him solve the many mysteries laid out before him.
Restless Souls plots the pathway of jaded art history lecturer R. I. Penny.
Upon reading about the death of actress Kate Considine, found dressed as Ophelia from Millais’s painting, Penny feels complicit. Indeed, for Penny, trouble is never far away – when a file left in his pigeonhole evidences fraud in the University, he hides it.
Bursting with swagger and vulnerability, Penny is questioned as a matter of routine by two detectives, Lucy Freeman and Richard Hart. But Penny is quickly convinced he can out sleuth Hart, and recruits an old friend Dove to help him solve the many mysteries laid out before him.
311 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 24, 2023
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26 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 19, 2023
I couldn’t get through this one. I kept zoning out and couldn’t stay focused. It wasn’t what I thought this book was going to be. I wanted to like it but around 30% I had to stop reading.
February 8, 2023
Thank you to the publishers for the ARC.
This sounded very different to other crime novels. A whodunit featuring murder as conceptual art with a main character that is academic and fancies himself as a sleuth.
Art theory and concepts mixed with crime detection. I jumped at the chance to read it.
I knew I might not pick up all the art references and allusions that the MC, art history lecturer Ron I Penny would talk about but the problem is the prose is also littered with them in the authors voice as well as Penny's dialogue.
And then there are some sections of the book where the writing is very straightforward with lots of short sentences as it riffs off of hard-boiled noir crime novels.
I think this is the main problem I had with it.
The style of writing just wasn't for me. The academic literary speak clashed with the noir rather than blending together.
At times it feels like it's trying to be clever for the sake of it. Here's a passage where Penny is fed up with marking his students work:
'He picked up more marking and increased his focus and speed. After some time, he put the work down. A huge pile had gathered on the floor. Over the next three days he finished it.
Day three found him screaming inside. He saw himself on a bridge outside Oslo, a suicidal homunculus in front of a blood red and yellow sky. It was temporary only, a moment of extreme anxiety - a 'Munchian' moment of alienation and fatigue.'
We all know the famous screaming painting. It will be personal choice as to whether you think this is a brilliant way of expressing how it feels to mark papers or a completely over the top and slightly pretentious reaction.
Anyway, putting the writing style aside, the overall plot is interesting although the pacing is way off.
A sub-plot (something to do with fraud at the university) seems to take over and stop any investigation into the murder or possible suicide for ages.
The reveal of 'whodunnit' isn't a surprise as we're led along to it with no other choices and it's revealed way before the end of the book to give plenty of time for art discussion.
The police seem to want to leave it to Penny to solve. Hart and Freeman are mentioned in the blurb but after the initial meeting Freeman disappears for most of the novel and doesn't work on the murder case.
At times it felt like bits of plot were still in the author's head instead of on the page. I don't think it explained how a character survived getting run over and I was a little confused about why the rush to meet someone at a church demolition.
I think there's a really decent 200 page novel struggling to get out of the 410 pages we have here.
I'm sure some people will love the writing style but it just wasn't for me.
Finally a quick warning that there is a lot of talk about suicide in the book. The representation of suicide in art is a speciality of Penny's. It's part of the reason he gets involved.
This sounded very different to other crime novels. A whodunit featuring murder as conceptual art with a main character that is academic and fancies himself as a sleuth.
Art theory and concepts mixed with crime detection. I jumped at the chance to read it.
I knew I might not pick up all the art references and allusions that the MC, art history lecturer Ron I Penny would talk about but the problem is the prose is also littered with them in the authors voice as well as Penny's dialogue.
And then there are some sections of the book where the writing is very straightforward with lots of short sentences as it riffs off of hard-boiled noir crime novels.
I think this is the main problem I had with it.
The style of writing just wasn't for me. The academic literary speak clashed with the noir rather than blending together.
At times it feels like it's trying to be clever for the sake of it. Here's a passage where Penny is fed up with marking his students work:
'He picked up more marking and increased his focus and speed. After some time, he put the work down. A huge pile had gathered on the floor. Over the next three days he finished it.
Day three found him screaming inside. He saw himself on a bridge outside Oslo, a suicidal homunculus in front of a blood red and yellow sky. It was temporary only, a moment of extreme anxiety - a 'Munchian' moment of alienation and fatigue.'
We all know the famous screaming painting. It will be personal choice as to whether you think this is a brilliant way of expressing how it feels to mark papers or a completely over the top and slightly pretentious reaction.
Anyway, putting the writing style aside, the overall plot is interesting although the pacing is way off.
A sub-plot (something to do with fraud at the university) seems to take over and stop any investigation into the murder or possible suicide for ages.
The reveal of 'whodunnit' isn't a surprise as we're led along to it with no other choices and it's revealed way before the end of the book to give plenty of time for art discussion.
The police seem to want to leave it to Penny to solve. Hart and Freeman are mentioned in the blurb but after the initial meeting Freeman disappears for most of the novel and doesn't work on the murder case.
At times it felt like bits of plot were still in the author's head instead of on the page. I don't think it explained how a character survived getting run over and I was a little confused about why the rush to meet someone at a church demolition.
I think there's a really decent 200 page novel struggling to get out of the 410 pages we have here.
I'm sure some people will love the writing style but it just wasn't for me.
Finally a quick warning that there is a lot of talk about suicide in the book. The representation of suicide in art is a speciality of Penny's. It's part of the reason he gets involved.
March 31, 2023
Ronnie is a personal friend, and by that I mean I know him as a person, not in a cyber sense, and thus my review might be biased which both works for, and against.
I'll only say this, the story had me gripped, excellent holiday reading, from beginning to end. Moments of humour eloquently juxtaposed against scenes of horror. The art history aspects which were frequent, and of which I'm still entirely ignorant did not affect the flow of the novel, nor did some of the wry cryptic comments and asides declared by several of the characters. In fact, the intellectualism of the story will have me re-reading this in a year or two, probably with an internet browser to hand to view the images that Ronnie is referencing.
Bring on more, Mad Dog Brown.
I mean, more Mad Dog Penny.
I'll only say this, the story had me gripped, excellent holiday reading, from beginning to end. Moments of humour eloquently juxtaposed against scenes of horror. The art history aspects which were frequent, and of which I'm still entirely ignorant did not affect the flow of the novel, nor did some of the wry cryptic comments and asides declared by several of the characters. In fact, the intellectualism of the story will have me re-reading this in a year or two, probably with an internet browser to hand to view the images that Ronnie is referencing.
Bring on more, Mad Dog Brown.
I mean, more Mad Dog Penny.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews