NIcola Upson - Nine Lessons

Rating: 4/5

Review:
A good, gripping read

I have come late to Nicola Upson's work; Nine Lessons is the first I have read although it is the seventh in the series.   However, it can be read as a stand-alone novel and I enjoyed it, albeit with a few reservations.

Set largely in Cambridge in 1937, there are two crime strands, a series of murders which eventually turn out to be linked and a serial rapist terrorising Cambridge.  These are investigated by DCI Penrose and his friend Josephine Tay and it makes for a good, atmospheric read.  Nicola Upson writes very good prose, she creates very good, human characters and evokes pre-war Cambridge very well.  I did find that, especially in the first few chapters, there were enough linguistic anachronisms to throw me out of the story rather and it's something which did spoil the beginning for me, but it seemed to settle down and I enjoyed the book overall.  The murder plot is rather ridiculously contrived, but as this is a sort of homage to Golden Age detective stories, I didn’t mind that.

Just on a personal note, I was in Cambridge at the time of the real Cambridge rapist and remember the terrible fear which affected many of my friends.  I was a little apprehensive about how Upson would deal with this in fiction, but personally (and as a man, I speak with great caution about this) I think she handles it very well.  It isn't exploitative in any way and I think she captures the atmosphere which pervaded the city then without trivialising or sensationalising.  And I like her dedication of the book to the women who survived the real Cambridge rapist.

I can recommend Nine Lessons (with some caveats) as a gripping and well written read.

(I received an ARC via Netgalley.)