Some Danger Involved by Will Thomas

Thomas Llewelyn is a man out of work, and recently out of prison. Scanning the papers for a job one day, he sees an ad for an assistant posted by one Cyrus Barker. Seeing that it might interest him, he goes to apply for the position, but the sheer number of men waiting to fill the position, even though the ad warns "Some Danger Involved" puts him off and after a wait of only five minutes, he goes in search of other positions.

But five days later, he is still unemployed, and he is down to his last bit of money. He sneaks out of his place of lodging without paying his rent and spends his last bit of money on some coffee and buttered bread for his breakfast. Then, as the job has yet to be filled, he returns to the office of Cyrus Barker. There, he learns that every job applicant leaves angrily, some after five minutes, some ten, but all leave eventually, and that the man must be a thoroughgoing tyrant.

Yet, when Thomas goes in, it all seems straightforward enough... until his putative boss takes him outside to a small courtyard and tests him by throwing small hard rubber balls at him. The last one is no ball, but a knife! Still rubber, but painted well to resemble a real one. Thomas is shaken, but unbowed by the strange initiation, and Barker tells him he has the job. Not just for the skills he has shown, but for his very thinness and the way he can disappear into the crowd.

But having won the job, he now has tasks for Thomas. He gives him a list of places to enter through the back and to tell the people there, "Barker sent me". Which Thomas does, with the help of a cab driven by a man who takes him around for free after hearing the same phrase. Thus, he is measured for a new suit, boots and other necessary items, and also picks up for Barker tea, tobacco and some other parcels. At the end, he returns to Barker's house, where he finds a bath and bed waiting for him, with Barker telling him that these come with the job.

And soon enough, he learns what exactly Barker does, when a young Jewish man with a strong resemblance to Jesus is found crucified, hanging from a lamppost in a market in the midst of London's Jewish Ghetto. Marcus is hired by Sir Moses Montefiore to look into the death and find the perpetrator or perpetrators. Barker agrees, having worked for Sir Moses before. He understands the Jews in ways other Goyim, or Gentiles, don't.

But was the perpetrator a single man, or a group? Lately, the Sephardim, the Jews from Western Europe, have been joined by the Ashkenazim, or the Jews of Eastern Europe, displaced from their homelands by war and unrest. This sudden influx of new Jews has made the people of London worry, and many of the lower classes are angry at their former jobs being taken away by these newcomers. So, needless to say, there are an abundance of people who hate, or at least stir up bad feeling against, the Jews.

But could any of them have decided to start a pogrom or genocide now? Or is the perpetrator a single man with a grudge against the dead student, one Louis Pokryzwa? Though he was a brilliant religious scholar and destined for great things, there are signs that he had fallen in love with someone- a girl, perhaps a woman. Unfortunately, nobody in his circle of friends or fellow students knew who she was.

So, who killed Louis Pokryzwa? And can Barker find the culprit before the bad feelings stirred by the influx of new Jews from faraway countries lead to more deaths and insurrection in the streets? Can Thomas, who is a newcomer at all of this, somehow survive and help his employer find the culprit, when the last person to have the job was shot while helping Barker look into a case?

I really enjoyed this book, which was the prequel to a book I read in April called "To Kingdom Come". In this book, we see Thomas Llewelyn before he comes to be employed by Cyrus Barker, and his position is precarious indeed. Low on funds and hope, he is literally willing to kill himself if he doesn't get the job, and Barker sees all that in him when he comes through the door to apply.

But Thomas's willingness to do just about anything, and his somewhat phlegmatic Welsh temperment stand him in good stead in Barker's employ, and in his first case. The case itself is so perfectly a sign of the times in the book, with new inhabitants coming to London and inciting displeasure and even outright hatred in the inhabitants of London because the newcomer's ways are so strange, and even worse, they are Jews! Jews have long been hated in Europe for their role in killing Jesus (at least, as people back then saw it), and they are presented in a sympathetic fashion here.

The true identity of the killer remains a mystery and hidden right up until the end of the book, when it is revealed in all its stunning glory amidst a street fight and brawl where the Jews are fighting to protect their homes from those who would throw them out and despise them. The case comes to an entirely satisfying ending, and Thomas agrees to continue working for Barker- the violence of his first case, and the injuries he recieves thereby aren't enough to dissuade him from this work.

This is another excellent book, and I can't wait to read what may be ahead for Barker and Thomas Llewelyn and the other cast of characters from the book. Will Thomas has a genius for Characterization and a wonderful sense of time and place that really bringe the book to life. Highly recommended.