Let Loose the Dogs: Murdoch Mysteries by Maureen Jennings
| Let Loose the Dogs: Murdoch Mysteries by Maureen Jennings | |
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| Category: Crime (Historical) | |
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Reviewer: Linda Lawlor
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| Summary: Family and death become determining factors as Murdoch struggles to disentangle truth from falsehood in his latest case. His father is due to hang in a couple of days for a murder he claims he did not commit. But is he telling the truth? | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 464 | Date: April 2012 |
| Publisher: Titan | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 9780857689900 | |
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The fourth book in the series of mysteries which star Detective William Murdoch is set, like the others, in Toronto. Religion, money and family rule this late-Victorian city just as they do back 'home' in England, and Murdoch's struggles for truth and justice, not to mention his love life, are played out against the sense of guilt and the moral restrictions imposed upon him by his Catholic faith.
Those were harsher, more violent times, and as the book opens we find ourselves immediately plunged into an atmosphere heavy with bloodlust and confusion. A group of men have gathered in a barn on a hot, stormy day to bet on dogs which have been trained to kill rats, and the cries of the men, the scent of the dying creatures and the barking of the maddened dogs is overwhelming. The men have been drinking freely, and by next morning one of them is dead. Murdoch's father, a drunken old reprobate who regularly beat his wife and children, was seen arguing with the victim and is condemned to hang for his murder. He protests his innocence, but if truth be told, he was so drunk he cannot remember what happened that night on the river bank. Resigned to his fate he decides to trace his son, whom he has not seen for many years, to say farewell. It is only when he discovers that William is now a detective that he begins to think he may be saved from the noose.
In the meantime Murdoch has been preoccupied with further family matters. His sister, who fled to an enclosed convent many years before to escape their brutal father, is on her deathbed, and William is summoned to see her one last time. 'See' is a relative term, of course, for the strict rules of her Order mean that even now, hours from death, the two siblings are divided by a metal grille and a black curtain. She is too sick to say much, but a letter discovered after her death will have serious implications for Murdoch's investigation into his father's case.
This is a somewhat darker book than the preceding ones. Doubt and mystery surround aspects of the detective's childhood, and he has to battle old resentments and angers in order to conduct investigations with his usual fair-mindedness. Once again Ms Jennings leads us into a wide range of social settings, deftly creating vivid and convincing scenes, and touching on issues as wide ranging as depression, inter-faith marriage and rape. She manages to convey the curious dichotomy of a world which has taken on board all the prejudice, ritual and regulation of Victorian life while remaining in many ways a land of pioneers. Murdoch himself embodies many of those contradictions, having worked as a lumberjack for years before joining the police, and being unlikely, despite his obvious talent, to ever achieve promotion in the police force because of his religion. It is a fascinating world, and the books would be well worth reading for their social settings alone.
Family and the problems it can cause are also the theme of Poor Tom is Cold, the third book in the series. An apparent suicide and the fate of a woman committed to a lunatic asylum lead Murdoch on a thrilling case, as he works to uncover a web of lies, murder and conspiracy.
All good novels should stand alone, and this one is no exception. However, the character of Murdoch is an intriguing one, well outside the usual run of detectives, so it would be worth the reader's while to investigate Except the Dying and Under the Dragon's Tail by the same author.
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