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nwhyte's review
3.0
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1986059.html[return][return]takes place immediately after Jade Woman, which I read earlier this month. Lovejoy has escaped Hong Kong and arrives penniless in New York, where he soon gets sucked into a group of sinister plutocrats involved with raising questionable money as their stake in the Great California Game. The first half of the book, in which Lovejoy tries to grasp the reality of New York and also gets entangled in the conspiracy, is very well portrayed - both the richness of the setting and our hero's confusion in adapting to it. The second half was less good; en route to California Lovejoy and his rapidly acquired assistants encounter various American regional stereotypes, while Lovejoy demonstrates a hitherto-unseen talent for actually making money from his (possibly supernatural) gift for telling real antiques from fakes, and there is then a rather hard-to-swallow twist at the end. And surprisingly it is almost halfway through the book before Lovejoy gets together with any of the various women who as usual throw themselves at him. So, a book of two halves really. (And I am beginning to wonder how many of the Lovejoy books are actually set in East Anglia, or even England? So far I've had France, the Isle of Man, Hong Kong and now the US.)
gengelcox's review
2.0
David Dandy and Sonia Kreidenweis, my landlords from my last semester, turned me onto the Lovejoy series on A&E. Lovejoy, a rogue antiques dealer with a circle of friends who combine to help and hinder, is the type of character I’d like to create–witty and crass, full of interesting quirks, yet also a sense of morality. Now that I’m once again sans A&E, I turned to the novels of Jonathan Gash that provided the basis for the TV show.
While the dichotomy between TV and book isn’t quite as drastic as one like Spenser: For Hire, there is a marked difference. For one, the book Lovejoy is much more a loner than his television counterpart. He’s also much more chauvinistic, smart-alecky, and incredibly stupid, at least in things other than antiques. And, although the TV Lovejoy tries to match the first-person narrative of the books with his humorous asides to the camera, it just doesn’t come close to the endless personal nature of the on-running dialogue between character and reader in the book. Which is to say that both media have their pros and cons.
In this novel, Lovejoy finally visits America, and quickly gets involved in a very large scam–one that decides the crime takings for the whole country. I like to think of it as if [a:Damon Runyon|13943|Damon Runyon|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1344897293p2/13943.jpg] had been born British, with the first-person narrative flowing serenely over the dangerous mob happenings below.
Oh, I almost forgot my favorite line in the book. Lovejoy, trying to extradite himself from one of the situations is telling the reader his plan, with the ending, “Then exit, pursued by bear.” Funny? Not alone, perhaps, but in context, this stage description from Shakespeare, incongruously applied, tickled me in the right places. I liked this book enough to pick up another, and I suspect that I’ll probably end up reading them all if they can match the fun of this one.
While the dichotomy between TV and book isn’t quite as drastic as one like Spenser: For Hire, there is a marked difference. For one, the book Lovejoy is much more a loner than his television counterpart. He’s also much more chauvinistic, smart-alecky, and incredibly stupid, at least in things other than antiques. And, although the TV Lovejoy tries to match the first-person narrative of the books with his humorous asides to the camera, it just doesn’t come close to the endless personal nature of the on-running dialogue between character and reader in the book. Which is to say that both media have their pros and cons.
In this novel, Lovejoy finally visits America, and quickly gets involved in a very large scam–one that decides the crime takings for the whole country. I like to think of it as if [a:Damon Runyon|13943|Damon Runyon|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1344897293p2/13943.jpg] had been born British, with the first-person narrative flowing serenely over the dangerous mob happenings below.
Oh, I almost forgot my favorite line in the book. Lovejoy, trying to extradite himself from one of the situations is telling the reader his plan, with the ending, “Then exit, pursued by bear.” Funny? Not alone, perhaps, but in context, this stage description from Shakespeare, incongruously applied, tickled me in the right places. I liked this book enough to pick up another, and I suspect that I’ll probably end up reading them all if they can match the fun of this one.
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