Review: Angels of Music

Most people today know “The Phantom of the Opera” via Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical. That’s not bad per se, even though the original novel offers a little more - and doesn’t turn the phantom from ‘villain’ to ‘misunderstood genius forced to wear a mask’, although he’s a genius in the novel, too. “Angels of Music” by Kim Newman, however, is not just a retelling of the novel - it’s a crossover between “The Phantom of the Opera” and “Charlie’s Angels”. Which, to be honest, makes me wonder whether, instead of another reboot of Charlie’s Angels, they should try to make a movie or two (or five, there’s five distinct stories in there) out of this book instead.

I had my eye on the book before, while I was diving into the “Anno Dracula” series, but discarded it from my wish list at Amazon when I got stuck in “The Bloody Red Baron”. Unlike that one, however, I can imagine to reread “Angels of Music” at some point. It has a great premise and, above all, is filled with women who have agency and act for themselves - not what you’d expect to come out of a book which was, beneath all pretence of being a mystery, a pulpy adventure story with an ingénue damsel.

Kim Newman is known for making use of characters which are in public domain for his stories (which is why Dr. Fu Manchu, not yet in public domain, is always referred to as ‘the Lord of Strange Deaths’). In this one, he pulls out all the female leads which could in some way be connected to the Phantom’s France (from the 1870s to 1910) and casts them as Angels of Music at different times. There’s always three of them at any given time, but they change through the ages and through the stories.

“The Marriage Club” comes with the three first angels: Christine Daée (no surprise there), Trilby O’Farrell, and Irene Adler (yes, that Irene Adler). They’re up against someone who makes the perfect wives for high-ranking men - out of clockwork. In this one, the phantom still keeps a very close control over two angels (not Irene), but he changes his strategies later. The overall tone is also introduced: the supernatural exists and the angels can definitely get into dangerous situations. It’s a very pulpy one.

“Les vampires de Paris” introduces three new angels and is more of a mystery story. In it, the Grand Vampire, master of the criminal group known as ‘Les Vampires’ in Paris, hires the angels to find a vampire preying on specific victims and putting blame on his group. It’s also the story in which we learn that, while Dracula was busy in London, his three brides were in Paris, having fun and making some money.

“Guignol” is nothing more or less than a thriller with murderous psychopaths who enjoy maiming and killing. It seems suitable that one of the angels at that time is ahead of the curve when it comes to torturing (not all angels are nice and none is a classic ‘good girl’). It’s also the story where we learn that Lady Snowblood took a little trip to France during her revenge mission.

“The Mark of Kane” is a heist story when all’s said and done. The three angels do not try to fight their way through a French town usurped by an American millionaire set on making a real war in Europe so he can make more money - they trick everyone, making the members of the group preparing for war fighting each other.

“Deluge”, finally, is the swan-song for Erik; first the Persian (who was the Bossley to Erik’s Charlie) is killed, then angels from various sets are endangered, finally, it ends with a fight to the death between the Daughter of Cagliostro (now claiming to be the Queen of Atlantis) and the Phantom of the Opera, who threw in with Les Vampires to destroy her network of henches.

The Opera Ghost Agency doesn’t end with his death (or seeming death, if you read to the very end of the book). One of the angels takes Erik’s place, another the place of the Persian. New angels will come, new missions will be tackled (perhaps including a trip to the Île des Monstres). The Agency could very well still be operative today - at least in this version of reality.

“Angels of Music” is a surprisingly feminist book which manages to pass the Bechtel test over and over again. The angels are often talking among themselves and rarely about men, unless they’re either clients or targets of the mission. They form friendships with each other, they help each other, they work together seamlessly when necessary. They’re not always the same types - each of the trios is, of course, created to be useful for the case told. The first three angels are performers first and foremost - three singers and actors. The next set are a detective, an assassin, and a witch - which brings together all needed for this case. The set afterwards are a journalist, a torturer, and an avenging fighter. The set after them is made up of three people who can do a heist - two women who can fake identities and a small, agile bird-girl with a quick mind. The final set has a female homunculus, a mute acrobat, and a clockwork woman. Each of the women has her own title - Kate Reed (who is also in other Kim Newman novels), the journalist, is the Angel of Truth. Irene Adler is the Angel of Larceny. Olympia is the Clockwork Angel (and, strictly speaking, the longest-serving angel, being around from the end of the first to after the last story).

Given the original story - which still does give Christine a little more agency than many women in pulp have, giving her the choice of her fate - is pure pulp, so that is also what I expected from the book. It’s what I got, too, but it’s feminist pulp to a degree. The angels aren’t fearful women in danger, damsels in distress. Erik might lend a hand twice (in “The Marriage Club” and “Guignol”), but it’s only from afar; the angels do their own saving most of the time. They save each other as well. Even in the end, they’re not just standing there to be saved; as soon as the Phantom appears, the angels also jump into action, fighting the army of the enemy with considerable success.

It seems fitting that, with the Phantom presumed dead and the Persian really dead, the angels decide to take over the agency, one of them replacing the Opera Ghost and another taking the place of the Persian as the person to approach about engaging the O.G.A.

“Angels of Music” is an entertaining take on the source material which introduces a lot of female characters from public domain and gives them something they’re often sorely missing in their original stories: agency. It’s a good read, very entertaining and well-written. If you have some time, perhaps this summer, I can only recommend the book to you.

Review: Moriarty. A Novel

Welcome to the first review of 2020, “Moriarty. A Novel” by Anthony Horowitz. I made a list of books at the beginning of the year which I had bought in e-book format over the course of the years and never read for some reason or other and “Moriarty. A Novel” was on that list. What with all that social distancing and stuff, I decided to look into the book and found myself forging through it and enjoying the ride.

What I had expected is not what I got, which is good. I’m an avid reader and a writer and you learn to see patterns that way. Sometimes, that takes the surprise out of a good many plot twists, but not in this case. I was completely surprised when the twist came, despite the fact that there are many subtle hints beforehand which you can easily identify after the twist. Good writing, no question.

First of all, I had expected for the book to tell me more about Professor Moriarty (yes, that one), which didn’t really happen. There’s one scene which goes into his background, giving a look into how and why he became the ‘Napoleon of Crime’, but for most of the book, he’s not the main focus - and for a reason.

The novel has an introduction which suggests a Watson perspective, but the story begins in Meiringen a few days after the confrontation between Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty at the Reichenbach Fall. A body has been fished out of the river below the fall which fits with the description of Professor Moriarty. The first-person narrator, who introduces himself as Frederick Chase, a Pinkerton agent, wants to take a look at the corpse, but is not allowed to do so by the local police, so he approached Detective Inspector Athelney Jones of Scotland Yard for a permission to tag along. (Jones is a verified inspector in the Sherlock Holmes canon, featuring, among other stories, in “The Sign of Four”.)

After they have searched the body, Chase confides in Jones that he’s been looking for the professor because there were hints that Moriarty was working with an American crime lord whom Chase wants to catch, among other reasons, for killing a friend and colleague a little earlier in London. From there on, Jones and Chase travel together and work on finding said crime lord, a man called Deveraux whose looks aren’t known. They find themselves in dangerous situations, are threatened, almost killed. They form a friendship and there’s even talk of continuing together, especially as Jones finds himself on the verge of being fired after infiltrating the American consulate.

With rising stakes, the story steers towards a finale which feels a little like a let-down - until the twist. I will no spoil that one here, it would be a shame to take that moment of utter surprise from you. Just let me say there’s a reason why the first-person narrator introduces himself with ‘you can call me Frederick Chase’.

The novel is a delight to read for the first time. The writing is fluent and pulls the reader along. The characters are engaging and are given enough depth so the reader cares about them. The world is well-researched and it’s clear the author has read their Sherlock Holmes and can fit in all those little extras which make this novel, despite not containing Sherlock Holmes or Dr. Watson, feel like a true Sherlock Holmes story. Using a Watson perspective helps, of course, with Chase claiming he’s not a deductive type, but arrives at the solution of his cases more through perseverance and hard work. Jones, on the other hand, is striving to be like Sherlock Holmes, having studied the great detective’s methods and doing his best to emulate them. It doesn’t always work, of course.

The story gets personal with both, Chase telling Jones early how and why he became a Pinkerton man, Jones introducing him to his wife and daughter. Chase cares for Jones’ well-being, warning him off the case several times, especially with the inspector having a family. They look out for each other, they fight side by side, they risk their lives for each other. On every other turn, however, they’re thwarted. Clearly, there’s someone working against them. Is it the man they’re after? Is he behind the adolescent boy who threatens Chase with a razor and seems more than capable of killing? Is he the man who travels in a coach, picking the boy up before the telegraph room of Scotland Yard (which happens to be next to Jones’ office) is blown up?

Those questions do get answers in the end, there’s nothing which the plot rustled up which is not answered. All plot arcs are brought to a conclusion, even if some of those arcs end tragically.

I realize I’m coming back to the twist which I won’t spoil here again. It’s just that I don’t have seen this kind of twist done quite so well and convincing in a long while and thus I really enjoyed it. Getting surprised by a book gets harder the more you have read and the more time you’ve invested in writing yourself.

Foreboding is heavy in this book, but also very well done. From carefully chosen expressions, such as ‘you can call me Frederick Chase’ instead of ‘my name is Frederick Chase’ over a suggestion to bury the body of Moriarty under the name of a missing cook, so the crime lord would think that Moriarty is still alive, up to the moment of the twist, there are small hints hidden well which you will spot the second time through, of course.

First person is a difficult point of view if you want to pull this off, it’s much easier in third person perspective, because then, we know we’re not necessarily getting all of the thoughts or all the knowledge of the character. Yet, by very much concentrating on the here and now, by very detailed descriptions of where the characters are and what is happening, Horowitz manages to keep his big twist hidden well. There’s only a handful of chapters where ‘Frederick Chase’ (you should already have picked up that the narrator is not Frederick Chase) steps back from the story to explain more, breaking the fourth wall in the progress and addressing the reader directly. Most of the time, the reader is riding along on his shoulder, seeing what he is seeing, going through the story as it happens, getting thoughts and emotions which come with the situation. There’s no ruminating about the past or the future, no reminiscence about Chase’s life. From the moment Jones - and the reader - are aware of his past, nothing more is said about it.

“Moriarty. A Novel” is a great book to read, provided you enjoy Sherlock Holmes novels and the setting as a such. It is well-written, definitely by someone who knows his way around the canon. It has a great plot twist just as you think the climax is past. I can guarantee that, if you like this kind of novel at all, you’ll definitely enjoy reading it, so I fully recommend it.

About Using Torture

A word at the beginning: No, this is not a post about how you shouldn’t use violence or dark and gritty themes or suchlike in your stories. It’s not about not portraying things which happen in real life and are, agreeably, bad. Quite the other way around: it’s about realistically using torture and avoiding the pitfall of ‘it’s a reliable source of information.’

Let’s start with that right away. Oodles of novels, movies, TV series, and other types of media show torture as a way for the bad guys and the good guys (as long as they’re not too good) to gain information which is true and useful. Well, I have bad news for you on that front. One reason why we don’t use torture any longer is that it doesn’t work that way. If you hurt someone, they’ll do everything to make it stop at some point. That means that in most cases they’ll tell the torturer what they want to hear - or what the victim thinks the torturer wants to hear. Needless to say that that doesn’t have to be the truth.

In most stories, what the caught bad guy says under torture is true - but that’s not what happens in real life. Especially when you have a timed situation (bomb going off, hostage in danger, etc.), verifying the information would take time you may not have and you would need to verify the information.

So, unlike in shows like “24”, torture as a valid form of getting reliable information isn’t a reality. Don’t make it one, because it leads to people thinking it really is. To people saying ‘why shouldn’t the police rough up a suspect to find the kidnapped child?’, for instance.

There are places for torture and violence against a helpless person in fiction, just not when it comes to getting information. It took us a few centuries (or a few more), but we learned this lesson, don’t let it be unlearned.

So, after the ‘when not to use it’ part, now on to the other one. When can you use torture in your story (provided it fits with the tone)?

Your villain can use torture in different ways. They want to break someone’s will, perhaps even turn a friend against the hero. Torture, both psychological and physical, can do that. They want someone to confess to a crime they didn’t do. That’s what’s been done through torture for centuries, so you’re completely in the green. They just are sadistic bastards (or bitches) and want to see someone suffer for no higher reason. They’re villains, so there’s no reason whatsoever why they shouldn’t enjoy the view.

‘And what about my hero? Well, my antihero?’ you ask. Your anti-hero can get violent in certain situations. Perhaps they’re attacking a guy they’ve caught, because they have been taunted constantly. Perhaps they’re forcefully taking some object from someone, because they need it (or think they do). Do that, have them get violent towards someone who is not a threat, who is not fighting back. But, and that’s an important ‘but,’ show that it has negative consequences. The hero gets into trouble for roughing up that guy, despite the taunting beforehand. The object doesn’t work - it wasn’t what they really needed.

‘But my hero is an anti-hero, they’re allowed to be violent,’ you say. Yes, they might be allowed to be violent, depending on the setting. If you’re doing the whole dark and gritty setting, they will certainly be violent to a degree. There is, however, a difference between being violent towards attackers, towards people who are on the same level when it comes to fighting, and being violent towards people who are no threat to the hero and can’t protect themselves. The reason why an anti-hero is still a hero is that they have a code - a code of conduct or a moral code, created by themselves in most cases. It might not confirm to the law, allow for them to steal, lie, break in, even kill under certain circumstances, but there’s still limits, hard limits which the character will never ignore. Attacking someone who is in no position to defend themselves should be one of those. Your anti-hero can kill as many armed henches as they like, but they shouldn’t kill a civilian just as easily and without even a tinge of a bad conscience or hint of consequences.

Back to getting information, though. When I started writing the Knight Agency series, I made it clear early on that the agents are trained to withstand torture (yes, even the women), but also that the Agency doesn’t use torture. They interrogate, which is not the same. Interrogation techniques rely on psychology, on getting the person you interrogate to trust you. It’s essentially the opposite of torture. You want them to relax a little, to drop their defences, to let things slip because of it. Or you surprise them, you destroy their balance, you make them lose their cool, but not through pain. That is what Jane is taught to do, what she helps with throughout the series. Not how to cause someone as much pain as possible, but to get them to drop their defences and tell her more than they want to, because those slips are true - there’s no reason to keep silent about the lies.

That actually gives you a lot more to do, allows you to create a character tailored to that sort of thing - devious, manipulative, intelligent, charming, personable. Perhaps a colleague or friend - or someone the hero needs to hire, meaning they need to do some other jobs, a little subplot, in order to get the money or whatever else the interrogation specialist demands for their services. Perhaps that interrogator is a freelancer, perhaps they’re under control of the villain, perhaps they’re in trouble themselves and need to be rescued first.

Think of Black Widow in “Marvel’s The Avengers” as she’s questioning Loki. She plays him, she uses his own arrogance against him until he lets slip what she wants to know. That is a scene which is much more unusual and much less expected than simply torturing someone. Interrogation demands intelligence and knowledge about psychology, the ability to read people and the ability to act convincingly. I’m not saying that a successful torturer doesn’t have a certain specific skill set as well, but a well-created interrogation scene can be much more interesting and engaging for the audience.

Remember that there’s a reason torture is no longer used regularly in law enforcement: it doesn’t work for getting information. Interrogation does, though, and is used very successfully. Your villain can be as brutal as they wish, use torture to break their prisoner’s will, to get a false confession, just because they like seeing people in pain. Your hero, especially if they’re more of an anti-hero, can also use violence against helpless people, but they should be punished by the story for it, because it’s not something a good guy or a moderately not-bad guy should resort to. Using violence against attackers, though, is not a problem.

An Example of Problematic Plotting

As I mentioned in the last post, there are some plot problems in the stories “The Final Problem” and “The Empty House” by Arthur Conan Doyle which I now want to have a closer look at. They’re an example of plots which ignore the facts established before, which is a serious problem for a story.

In “The Final Problem”, Doyle wanted to kill Sherlock Holmes for good. To make it look good, he decided to give Holmes a spectacular death: locked in deathly combat with his equal on the other side of the law. That is not the problematic part of the plot, the problematic part of the plot is how Holmes gets to the stage for that last act, the Reichenbach Fall. After three attempts on his life and a threat from Professor Moriarty delivered in person, Holmes decides to take a trip to the Continent with Watson while the police is tightening the net and preparing to snatch all members of Moriarty’s organisation. So far, so good. Only - why would Holmes leave London and England in the first place? Holmes is known already at that point for his skills in disguising himself and going undercover. He has several hiding places throughout the city where he could stay for a few days - he tells Watson the net will be closed and everyone captured in three day’s time. Mycroft is already established with the readership, too, and a man who is sometimes said to be the British government should be able to hide his little brother for a couple of days. There is, in short, despite the threats, no reason for Sherlock to go gallivanting around the Continent, alone or in Watson’s company. This is the first part which is not quite logical, since Holmes is giving up his home turf where he has connections and knows every square inch, as Watson told us over and over again. The second part which is not quite logical is what happens in Strasbourg. There, Holmes receives a message from England that Moriarty and three of his lieutenants have escaped arrest. He even points out to Watson that Moriarty can never go back to England now, because he’d be arrested right away. Why, then, would Holmes not travel back home, where Moriarty now can’t touch him any longer? Escaping from England in the first place, the professor surely would rather seek a new life elsewhere than come back for revenge - and even if he did, he would no longer have that many agents to rely on and no longer be able to endanger Holmes like that.

Of course, those plot points are meant to direct Holmes to the Reichenbach Fall, to the place where he will die in deathly combat together with the Napoleon of Crime. Doyle needs Holmes to leave the security of England and travel to a far-away place where he can die heroically and his body will never be found (which can happen in such cases). Yet, Holmes is very much acting out of character (as fan-fiction writers would put it) in this story.

What would be better? Well, let me suggest a simple switch: Moriarty isn’t following Holmes, but Holmes is following Moriarty. Holmes has learned that Moriarty will leave England before he can be arrested and decides to follow to see where the professor goes, whether he’ll be able to apprehend him or leave it to the government afterwards to extract him. That would explain both why Holmes leaves London (he could take Watson along as a second gun, as during other adventures) and why he pushes on after learning that almost everyone has been caught. The biggest plot problems would  be solved and hunting down a criminal is perfectly within Holmes’ regular behaviour. Holmes forges ahead while Watson is kept back for some reason (you could even keep the fake letter), catching up with Moriarty at the Fall, getting into that fight. Everything else can, more or less, stay the same.

The story in which Holmes returns, “The Empty House”, also suffers from a major problem with the plot when it comes to explaining why and how Holmes didn’t die. Of course, Doyle couldn’t go back on the whole situation at the Reichenbach Fall. That had been published twelve years earlier and, clearly, all of the fans knew the story (and a lot had been upset about it, too). In “The Empty House”, Holmes explains that he wanted to hide from the three lieutenants of Moriarty who also escaped and decided to ‘fake’ his death because of that. That does make sense to a degree. He has climbed a sheer cliff wall (as not to leave footsteps leaving along the narrow path), lain on a ledge above the path for several hours, and then climbed down and left again. Before and while climbing down, one of said lieutenants, who clearly travelled with Moriarty, threw boulders at him, trying to kill him. He then disappeared for three years, not doing anything about those men, before the death of Ronald Adair brought him back home. Enter the lieutenant in question: Colonel Sebastian Moran, marksman and big game hunter - also, more or less, Moriarty’s right-hand man.

What is the problem with Holmes’ story? Well, there are two: first of all, even if he was tired of his life so far (as he mentions in the heavy foreshadowing “The Final Problem” delivers), he must be aware that the three men still alive and free will want him dead - and if they didn’t, there wouldn’t be any reason for him not to tell Watson he was still alive, but preferred no longer working as a detective, as hinted. So as long as he didn’t perceive them as a danger to himself, he wouldn’t have to hide. If he perceived them as a danger, wouldn’t it be better to work on getting them out of the picture in some way? There is, essentially, no reason for Holmes to go into hiding in the first place - he could official say he’s no longer working or he could simply continue until those lieutenants are out of the way and then stop working. The second part which is a problem are the boulders. Not that there aren’t any suitable boulders up in the Swiss Alps, but that Moran would use them. As mentioned above and in the story, Moran is a sharpshooter. He’s also the proud owner of an air gun which shoots revolver ammunition and can be used without alerting anyone (he uses it to kill Ronald Adair). If he was, as Holmes suggests, watching proceedings from a hiding place above the footpath himself, there was no reason for him to round the area and get above the ledge to drop boulders - a good shot at Holmes, on the path, during his climb, or afterwards, would have taken care of everything.

How to change this part of the story? To be honest, I’m not sure what to do about that. If Holmes thought he could draw out the three lieutenants by appearing dead, he might have done so, but he wouldn’t have been gallivanting around for three years doing anything but detective work in this case. Instead, he would have spent three years following one or more of those lieutenants (why not Moran, while we’re at it?) and would now come back to finish the deed. Or he might have used one year each for each of the lieutenants, with Moran being the last one to target.

And the part on the ledge? Honestly, the only reason I could think of would be that Moran came along while Holmes was just recovering and he scrambled to hiding, climbing up a wall easier to scale than it looks in order to stay hidden, then decided to rather let the world think he was dead. No boulders, no attacks on him, just making sure people would believe him dead.

Those are the two things which vex me about the story of Holmes’ death and resurrection. Not the death or the resurrection as a such, but the plot devices used to get Holmes in place and provide information on how he didn’t die after all. With other plot points, the stories would definitely have been better. How to avoid it? Knowing your character is the first step - know what they would or wouldn’t do from their background. Ask yourself if that really makes sense and if a normal person acting on common sense would handle it that way - and if not, why your character should.