Robin Bailes, The Vengeance of the Invisible Man (2019)
Good Reads meta-data is pages 236 rated 0.0 by 0 litizens. (Lazy sods!)
Genre: krimi, academic
Verdict: Whoa! I did not see that coming.
Recovering from her Mummy’s Quest (2018) adventures in Egypt, Amelia has been digging in Romania. Romania! Yes, Rumania in the Carpathian mountains. Seems there are pictographs there, too, for her to interpret. In anticipation of Christmas she has returned to Cambridge and her sister, the high powered Zit who talks a mile-a-minute while running hither and yon. She is loud, full tilt, and one-dimensional, contrast to the shintrovert Amelia.*
Zit’s publishing firm is bringing out a work of fiction – Memoirs of an Invisible Man. In short order, the question becomes ‘Is it non-fiction?’ because strange things start to happen. The author does not show up at the book launch, but the books go flying through the air. Sales follow. There are several other public displays of the invisibility – a pair of empty trousers dance through Christmas shoppers, and so on. Nothing that would be noticed on King Street in Newtown.
The sensation hungry media adds to the fire garnishing invisibility with hyperbole. Sales continue to soar. Zit loves the sales but cannot communicate with the author, still less set KPIs. All of this intrigues Amelia, who read the manuscript and found it poignant, even moving, whereas, compliant with her McKinsey training all Zit sees only £’s.
In a parallel track professors two in Cambridge fastness have been strangled in locked rooms. Were they victims of collegial animosity. Well, as a matter of fact….. [But that would be telling].
Plod Harrigan applies the acids of questions, shoe leather, and patience to crack the case much to the fury of his superior who wants RESULTS! NOW! Bullying subordinates is certainly a chapter in the McKinsey Management Manual these days. Nonetheless, as he nears retirement Harrigan keeps on keeping on, despite the badgering, er hmm, management of his superior. Loved Harrigan’s musings about his last words, and pleased he did not need them.
Meanwhile, Amelia connects the dots between the murders and the invisible man. Seems obvious, and yet there are surprises to come. Believe me: I was surprised. Of course, they are connected but not in the way I expected.
A victim of her own curiosity, Amelia gets in the way and has a brush with the invisible one that frightens her into contacting Universal (see The Mummy Quest, reviewed elsewhere on the blog, for an explanation). She expected [sigh] the suave, dashing, handsome Boris to come to her rescue. Instead, thanks to the duty roster, she gets the short, unsympathetic, and dowdy Elsa who saves her neck more than once with a willingness to believe the unbelievable and a resourcefulness honed from previous encounters with the unbelievable.
In the midst of all this Amelia meets a man who does take her seriously and she him, but fitting courtship into a schedule dominated by the unbelievable is difficult. This romance is charming, but it does slow the action.
There are references to the formidable Maggie at the start and finish, but I was disappointed she did not put in an appearance. She just about stole the show in Egypt. The crystal ball suggests that she will figure in the next title in the series that will take us to Nosferatu country.
There are many great lines in what is essentially a screenplay. Elsa says that in her experience the dividing line between the living and the dead is a grey area. There are more where that came from. Read on.
Razor-tongued Robin Bailes (host of My Dark Corner of this Sick World to be found on You Tube) cannot be stopped, and in this one he comprehensively outsmarted this jaded reader with the double-barrelled plot. It brings together many threads from the cinematic suite of invisible man films discussed elsewhere on this blog. This is the third book in Bailes’s series, and the best for my AUD $4.95 on Kindle. Very clever. Chapeux!
*Shintrovert is a shy introvert, a term coined by Jessica Pan in Sorry I am late, I didn’t want to come (2017) discussed elsewhere on this blog. Do try to keep up.