Exclusive interview with author Will Thomas and a review of his sixth book in the Barker series featuring Barker’s old nemesis Nightwine
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Gabrielle Pantera
“One unexpected offshoot of my novels is the current Bartitsu/Victorian martial arts craze,” says Fatal Enquiry author Will Thomas. “I began in 2002 by forming a Yahoo group on Victorian martial arts, merely to get the fight scenes in my first book as accurate as possible. Now the group I helped form, The Bartitsu Society, has produced three manuals, a video, and there are groups and schools in most major cities. I should say that this could not have happened without stage and movie fight coordinator Tony Wolf (The Lord of the Rings), who has done the lion’s share of the work and left me to scribble my stories. Not to mention the hundreds of dedicated teachers and students now studying the art of Bartitsu worldwide.”
Readers of the Barker series may be surprised this novel has more violence and less sleuthing than the other novels, but it also offers more historical facts. The gruesome details of torture and violence are not for the squeamish. Ultimately, it takes away from character development.
“I knew it was only a matter of time until Nightwine strolled into London again and all hell breaks loose,” says Thomas. “When I wrote Some Danger Involved, Barker and Llewelyn meet Sebastian Nightwine and it is obvious that he and Barker have a past, and that they hate each other. Hate is too good an emotion to throw away. That became Fatal Enquiry.”
As the book opens we meet private detective Cyrus Barker, who has been framed for the murder of a wealthy businessman. Nightwine has managed to fool the authorities and turns the tables on Barker. Barker is being chased by Scotland Yard, while Nightwine is being protected by them. Barker goes underground to avoid arrest. With his trusted assistant Llewelyn he must prove who the real killer is before Nightwine leave the country again after his secret dealings with the British government. With his upper-class friends and network of underworld associates Barker must stay one step ahead of his nemesis and the police.
Thomas first began writing for Sherlock Holmes society publications and had several related poems printed in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. “Some plot elements in my novels have come out of forgotten books, published a century ago, and yet we are still dealing with the same problems, such as fundamental insurgence in Afghanistan, apartheid in Africa, and trafficking worldwide,” says Thomas. “We’re fighting the same issues they fought in the Victorian Era.”
Thomas says he’s become quite adept at using inter-library loans and library databases. There is always a nineteenth century nonfiction book on his desk from a university. For example, a collection of jiu-jitsu manuals from The University of Notre Dame, published prior to 1910.
“I had the chance to study China and Tibet during the Qing Dynasty and especially the Taiping Rebellion,” says Thomas. “I was aided by Caleb Carr’s fine nonfiction book, The Devil Soldiers. It was the height of glory-hunting and imperialism and Tibet was like a ripe fruit, dangling just out of reach. The rumors of mystical places like Shambhala, where monks levitated and lived to be a hundred and fifty merely fueled the desire of explorers to be the first one to claim it.”
Thomas is currently working on the seventh novel of the Barker Llewellyn series, set in Jack the Ripper’s London in the fall of 1888. He’s speaking at the ALA Conference in Las Vegas this summer.
Thomas was born in Pennsylvania and lives in the Tulsa, Oklahoma area.
Fatal Enquiry by Will Thomas (Author(. Hardcover: 304 pages, Publisher: Minotaur Books; First Edition edition (May 13, 2014). Language: English, ISBN: 9781250041043 $25.99. Kindle: File Size: 666 KB, Print Length: 302 pages, Page Numbers Source ISBN: 125004104X. Publisher: Minotaur Books (May 13, 2014), Sold by: Macmillan, Language: English. ASIN: B00GQ67V04 $ 12.99
