For Fear of Little Men, by John Blackburn

[rachelmanija]

Down the airy mountain
Up the rushy glen
We daren't go a-hunting
For fear of little men.

The plot of this book is hard to describe, period, and even harder when trying to avoid spoilers. But basically, Sir Marcus Levin (Jewish; concentration camp survivor; Nobel prize winner in medicine) and his wife Lady Tania Levin (Russian; former bodyguard, yes really) move to a little cabin in Wales formerly occupied by a mysteriously tortured to death judge with an obsession about local folklore, while Marcus is investigating shellfish poisoning and Tania is recovering from a miscarriage caused by a mysterious car accident; while they're there, they additionally get involved in a mysterious case involving airplanes and strange noises. Also there are Nazis. This sounds like I've given away everything, but trust me, I haven't even come close.

I am pleased to report that this book by John Blackburn is exactly as batshit as A Scent of New-Mown Hay, if less spooky and somewhat less startling given that I already read one book by him and so was somewhat prepared for the otherwise unexpected Nazis. (As villains, I hasten to add.)

Blackburn reminds me a bit of Tim Powers, not in style or tone but in the construction of novels by assembling wildly disparate elements and then fitting them together like puzzle pieces to create a unified plot. A Scent of New-Mown Hay felt like horror and this feels like a thriller, but both are clearly coming from the same sensibility. Marcus and Tania, with their impressive and unlikely backgrounds, feel like recurring characters. I was unsurprised to see that they turn up in at least one other book.

Regarding Marcus's Jewishness, there's some of-the-period language and mild stereotyping, but he's the protagonist and quite likable, which is not how you expect to find a Jewish character in a book of this period by a non-Jewish author. Tania, likewise, is active and heroic. There is a character who's developmentally disabled or something and is not the greatest portrayal, but overall this book would be about five thousand times more offensive if written by say Agatha Christie.

I quite enjoyed this and look forward to reading more by Blackburn. Like many of his books, it has been reprinted and is available in ebook and paper form.