It is 1926, and Nellie Coker emerges from a short stay at Holloway prison to take back control of her nightclub empire. Out in force to greet her are her brood of six. Eldest is son, Niven, semi-detached from the family business, his outlook on life shaped by his years in the trenches. Then come three girls, young women now. Edith is her mother’s capable lieutenant, whereas Betty and Shirley are her projects, improved by college education and destined to marry well. Younger son Ramsey suffers from his place in the pecking order, ahead only of teenager Kitty, who borders on the feral.
The Coker clubs are in Soho, a magnet for girls whose actress ambitions have been downgraded to hostesses paid by the dance. A recent recruit, runaway from York, is fifteen-year-old Freda Murgatroyd and her friend Florence. Sent south in pursuit is family friend Gwendolen Kelling, spinster librarian, whose enthusiasm for life has been on hold until now, when newly parentless and in possession of an inheritance, she is more than ready to go to London and take up the challenge.
Then there are the police. Detective Chief Inspector Frobisher, sent to Bow Street to clean up the rife corruption, embodied, he suspects, by Inspector Maddox and Sergeant Oakes. He also has a rash of disappearances of young girls to deal with, some of whom end up hauled dead from the Thames.
Quite a cast of characters, and Atkinson sets out to ensure paths are crossed, connections made, and alliances forged. Deals are made, and renegued upon. As they all jostle for attention, drifting in and out of prominence, it is a challenge to keep track. Even 500 pages seems insufficient to give them each their head, or indeed to come to a neat conclusion.
The character
sketches are of trademark quality, and the 1920s period is convincing. But
against the high bar of expectation a Kate Atkinson novel generates, this falls
a little short.
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