Tangled Web UK Review February 2007
Night Watch by
Stephen Kendrick
pbk out February 07
(Berkley Pub)
at £3.7
As the overlong subtitle indicates, this novel introduces G.K. Chesterton's famous
sleuth into the world of Holmes and Watson. With his Father Brown stories,
Chesterton created the prototype cosy mystery that was later to become the hallmark
of the Golden Age of detective fiction. He was both a contemporary and an admirer
of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, publishing The Blue Cross (Father Brown's first outing)
in 1910, while Sir Arthur was writing the adventures that would later be collected as
The Return of Sherlock Holmes.
Night Watch is presented as a hitherto unpublished Sherlock Holmes case,
narrated by Watson, and featuring Lestrade and Mycroft. It is written with assurance
and shows a competent knowledge of early Edwardian London, despite the odd
anachronism. Mr Kendrick is himself a minister, and his previous publication – Holy
Clues: The Gospel According to Sherlock Holmes – is perhaps an indication that this
works better as a Father Brown pastiche than a Sherlockian one. The style is cosy
from the very beginning, albeit with a gruesome murder, and this is a Christmas
mystery, set in Holmes' last full year of practice.
Holmes is engaged by the Archbishop of Canterbury to investigate the death
of a priest at a secret conclave in Kensington, convened to organise the World's
Parliament of Religion. There they meet a youthful Roman Catholic curate by the
name of Paul Brown, accurately characterised along Chesterton's lines, who assists in
the investigation. Where Holmes was famous for his 'science of deduction', Father
Brown's reasoning was moral. Brown set a precedent for Hercule Poirot, and both
would solve mysteries through their superior comprehension of human motivation.
As a priest and father confessor, Brown saw so much evil that he actually came to
understand it, and used this understanding as a weapon against it.
There is a great deal of religious information included, but it adds to – rather
than detracts from – the atmosphere of a world sequestered from the secular. A minor
criticism is that this concern with religion is extrapolated to Holmes and Watson, who
show an interest in religion and the Bible out of character with Sir Arthur's originals.
Also, in contrast to the traditional cosy mystery, the reader is given an unfair clue as
to the killer's identity by the use of two names, only slightly altered, from the Bible.
Overall, the plot is original and engaging, and moves rapidly with religious
factions, espionage, and an agent provocateur. The mystery has a double
denouement, a rather clever device given the two detectives involved. Holmes, true to
form, solves the crime, but a greater understanding of the motives behind it is
ultimately revealed by Father Brown. The conclusion suggests that Brown and
Holmes stayed in touch, and ends with an especially memorable scene.
Night Watch is not quite the long-lost adventure promised, but it is a
creditable cosy, an entertaining Christmas crime, and a faithful rendition of Father
Brown in the years before he turned to detection.
(
Rafe McGregor
)
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