Provender Gleed by James Lovegrove (2005)

James Lovegrove strikes me as a writer whose work is hard to feel indifferent towards; sometimes even I find it irritating, and I like his work. Lovegrove delights in words and wordplay (it's no surprise that he also compiles cryptic crosswords), which can lead him to go over the top; but he also gains some of his best effects from nearly going over the top. Ultimately, it's a trade-off, but I think it's worth it.

This novel is set in a world mostly like ours, but which has been dominated by the great Families since early modern times and the Borgia de'Medicis. The Gleeds are the premier Family in Britain; their heir is 24-year-old Provender, who has his doubts about whether the Families are such a good thing, and no current interest in perpetuating the line. He'd rather sit in his room and update his journal than attend the Gleed summer ball; quite sensibly, as it turns out -- when his mother finally persuades him to go to the party, Provender ends up being kidnapped. Carver, the Gleeds' faithful servant, hires Milner and Moore (a pair of detectives who solve crimes with anagrams) to find Provender before his disappearance causes a war; but the culprit may be closer to home than anyone imagines...

There are two characteristics of Provender Gleed that seem to me to be quite common in what I've read of Lovegrove's work; what's great is that he doesn't allow either of them to overwhelm the story. The first, as mentioned above, is wordplay. You'll find quite a few puns and other tricks within the text, which would normally be annoying (and actually is annoying at times), but here they contribute to the overall atmosphere instead. And, of course, there are the detectives and their anagrams. Lovegrove is canny enough to acknowledge that the idea of solving crimes by anagrammatising names and phrases is rather silly, and he leaves this aspect of the book as added texture rather than the hinge on which the mystery turns; so, when the climatic anagram does appear, it's more a joke than a 'damp squib' ending.

The second characteristic is a certain stylised Britishness (or perhaps Englishness) -- in this case, the stereotype of the old, moneyed family (or Family) with a country pile, only writ larger than it ever could be in the real world. But the Gleeds in their bubble coexist with a harsh, gritty reality; Lovegrove's key achievement here is to make both of these feel as though they belong in the same world. It's a larger-than-life reality without a cushion of safety -- and it takes a sure hand to pull that off.

Provender Gleed isn't the most enjoyable James Lovegrove book I have read (that would be Days which, sadly, is now out of print); but it is good fun, and warmly recommended.