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Patti DeVere and the Case of the Missing Slingbacks, by Jonathan Kennedy
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By Jonathan Kennedy
Four stars
Bear Caradog is unquestionably the least competent private eye ever.
That doesn’t say I didn’t like him quite a lot: he’s a big, sweet, lumbering nincompoop. He lives with his mother, still has a crush on his long-ago-ex, Giovanni, and seems to think about food as much as he does about sex. The entire, very amusing book reads like an episode of “I Love Lucy.�
It is also very Welsh, filled with local slang, loads of local foodways and local culture that is marvelously quirky (even if it’s probably all spoof). It rather has the feel of that crazy series of comic novels by American author Janet Evanovich about bail-bondsman Stephanie Plum and her Trenton, New Jersey, neighborhood known as the Burg.
The plot is a mess of a shaggy dog story that, ultimately, leads to a sort of cliff-hanger, announcing the next book. But that was a minor concern. What really struck me is that, intentionally or not, Kennedy has created an image of modern-day Wales that is both a comical provincial outpost of the larger United Kingdom, but also completely connected to the global pop culture of today. Constant references (sometimes throw-aways, easy to miss) to the bumbling-but-astute TV detective Columbo, contemporary fashion, and gay life in the modern world, anchor Kennedy’s Wales in a world that all of us know. This is a Wales that has castles and ice slices, but also transsexuals and gay bars; a world where the Caerphilly plus-size underwear mogul Vivienne Hazelwood can be fuddled with the international fashion icon Vivienne Westwood.
It is also a benevolent world where Bear Caradog’s being gay is of no comment, while his bumbling professional skills are at the core of his troubles. Bear is a man who seems to lack a certain introspection. In his late 30s, he’s still very adolescent in his appetites and in his self-delusions. The big question in my mind at the end was not “will Bear solve the mystery?� so much as “will Bear ever grow up?�
I suspect we will get to know Bear better as the series rolls out, which just makes me anticipate the next book all the more.