Arrowood

The year is 1895 and down the mean, and quite filthy, streets of London walks a mercurial private detective, maverick investigator and self educated psychologist: William Arrowood. If you could not afford to pay Sherlock Holmes to help you, then there was one other possible resource for detection you could turn to. Sherlock Holmes may have patented a seven per cent solution in order to stoke the fires of his imagination but a drop of Mother's Ruin, Gin, was more than enough for Mick Finlay's more earth bound creation. Brilliant in his own way, William Arrowood roamed the densely packed labyrinth of the then greatest city in the world in order to pursue the wicked in ways and means the ordinary forces of the law could not. 

              Deeply flawed but enjoyably curmudgeonally William Arrowood feels all too plausible in a way that Sherlock Holmes did not. That is not to detract from the enduring magic of Conan Doyle's seemingly immortal creation. It is perhaps that Mick Finlay's creation is such an unexpectedly enjoyable diversion as he plods, at times recklessly, down some very dark alleyways and along some truly grimy pathways to a terrifying underbelly of a city that feels alive with all manner of corruptions and infections.

               At times Mick Finlay's London seems similar to Conan Doyle's London in name only. Holmes strode along the Victorian highways and byways without encountering the myriad depravities which fed the belly of the beast. William Arrowood may well step over them at times but he acknowledged they were there.

              Mick Finlay assembles an impressive group of supporting characters as well as two very engaging main leads. There are no loveable street urchins, the children that prevail in these seedy merciless streets are hardy survivors almost as intimidating as the adults who make their lives such a daily grind and a misery. There is no Jack Wilde artful Dodger ready to charm more than alarm. The poor people in this book lead very tough lives and it is not to much of a stretch therefore for them to be toughened by their experiences. Yet Mick Finlay does not overlay them with obvious character traits and ticks as they struggle to be better human beings than circumstances allow, brave and decent if constantly hungry. In this situation Sherlock Holmes would feel a fiction while William Arrowood would not, though off course he is. Holmes accepts cases which intrigue him and because he wants to, Arrowood accepts them in order to survive. 

              It all goes a bit Peaky Blinders  with some pretty nasty gang action going on. But these street gangs do not get together through a shared appreciation for Gilbert And Sullivan, they are violent ruthless gangsters in pursuit of money and power. In that sense perhaps they do not differ that much from the Victorian elite and perhaps have more in common with Opera lovers than one would first assume. Quite a bit of their power came from violent shows of strength, a strategy many modern drug lords still capitalise on. It is their form of Instagram I suppose, not as horrific as TikTok  or as passe as facebook, platforms which also rely on the energies generated by shame, fear and horror. 

               Arrowood is a great introduction to an interesting group of characters in an equally interesting situation. Iremember reading Anthony Horowitz's Sherlock tales (Nee; Moriarity) and felt they strayed a little outside the continuity set up by Conan Doyle, to very entertaining effect. Credulity creaks a bit but that is no bad thing. Arrowood carries no such baggage, there is no urge to subvert expectations, it all feels disturbingly flawed and fresh. 

             Thegame is not afoot. The game is a bourgoise indulgence.