Rating: 3/5
Review:
Amiable but not great
Although I quite enjoyed Artemus Strange overall, I had some quite
strong reservations about it.
This is the fifth of
the Batch Magna series; I have read the first which I liked but none
of the others. Here, Sir Humph and Clem are looking for ways to
raise money to keep the Hall going and the residents of Batch Magna
come up with a scheme to attract people by invoking the ghost of a
young man, heroically killed in the Hall during the Civil War. It’s
amiable enough fun and Peter Maughan writes very well, but I thought
the real strength of the first book was the sense of the rural
community, its characters and atmosphere, and especially the
descriptions of nature which were exceptionally good; all of these
are much less in evidence here.
This book does have
charm, but not in the same degree, I thought. There’s a lengthy
caper in the seedier parts of East End London which didn’t do a lot
for me and while there are moments of genuine human feeling and
insight (which Maughan did so well in the first book) they are thinly
scattered and more subservient to a rather pantomimic story.
I can’t recommend
this with the warmth with which I greeted The Cuckoos Of Batch Magna,
I’m afraid. It’s a well-written, amiable read, but not much
more.
(My thanks to
Prelude for an ARC via NetGalley.)
No comments:
Post a Comment