Rating: WARTY!
Set in the 1664 London of King Charles the second, not long after the British interregnum which came after Charles first who was defeated by Oliver Cromwell's model army, lost his head and Cromwell took over as Britain's Lord Protector. It didn't last. This is the sixth tome in Gregory's Thomas Chaloner series, and I am, with very few exceptions, not a series fan. This is the first Chaloner and the first Gregory book I have read and I do not plan to be back for more having DNF'd this one about a third the way through. The reason? It was boring!
As is entirely predictable with series, nothing gets done. If it did, it would be a novel and not a series. Therefore everything takes forever and the thought of reading any more of Chaloner's bumbling treacle on a frozen mirror pace as he blindly saunters through a murder investigation, really turned my stomach. The book moves with interminably glacial progress, and Chaloner isn't doing anything except stumbling onto clues by pure accident. He's clueless and useless and spends more time whining about people's attitudes and suffering idle threats from fops than ever he does investigating. It's no wonder his boss is so down on him. I kept wanting to kick his ass to get him to move.
The plot, such as it is, is that there are negotiations going on to try and prevent war between the Nederlanders and the British. In the midst of this, a Dutchman is killed - poisoned and thrown into the Thames. It's Thomas's brother-in-law from his previous marriage, and he left a clue for Thomas embroidered into the top of his stockings. Of course, you can't have him say, "Mr X did it" or "My life is in danger because of item Y!" No - he just leaves three cryptic words in Dutch and Thomas is supposed to figure it all out, which he does a piss-poor job of.
Two of the words are New and Gate, and there was a Newgate prison (it was demolished in 1904 after seven hundred years of service!), but by the time I gave up on this, a third of the way in, he still hadn't got his lard ass to the prison to make enquiries. Yawn. I suspect that was a red heeren as ti happens, and new gate referred to something else, but Thomas is too stupid to ask even one Dutch person whether "nieuwe poort" has any special meaning and I reached a point where I could not care less what it meant. The book is tedious and I'm done with it and with its author.
