Clem had listened with fascination the other week as Gregory and Polish Mark and the journalist Nathaniel had discussed how “you could just tell” about men’s tastes, or their guilt, or if they were hiding something that could make a good story. Clem didn’t seem to have whatever ability it was that let other people “just tell,” and it felt as if there was an entire world of communication going on at a pitch he couldn’t hear.
London, 1874. Clem Tallyfer, son of an English father and an Indian mother, runs a lodging house in Clerkenwell: the role suits him, because he's not that good with crowds or noise or thinking in a straight line. His brother (well, half-brother) Edmund owns the house, and insists that Clem tolerate one particular drunken, ill-mannered lodger, Lugtrout by name.
Clem gets along well with his other lodgers -- especially the taxidermist, Rowley Green, who Clem takes tea with in the evenings -- and relies on the redoubtable housekeeper Polly to manage what he can't. But when Lugtrout goes missing, and Edmund shows up to berate Clem for his lack of care, matters become more complicated, and far more dangerous.
I particularly admire the way Charles shows, rather than telling: she doesn't explain too much, but her descriptions and observations are more than sufficient to give insight and understanding into her characters. There's some excellent pacing in this novel, too: the gradual revelations of Rowley's and Clem's secrets.
Clem's friends, too, are a delight: 'Polish Mark' is a South Londoner whose mother's an anarchist; Nathaniel is a journalist, and Gregory's a stage manager. And Rowley Green's devotion to the art and practice of taxidermy -- he aspires 'to snatch something from the wreckage, to keep something back from the worms', and loathes the kind of set piece exemplified by dead kittens in suits playing cards -- is fascinatingly and eloquently described.
Looking forward to the next in this series, which should expand on the dark deeds and betrayals that Clem and Rowley discover during An Unseen Attraction.
Oh, and it's also a slow-burning romance between 'two such odd-shaped men, [who] fit together so naturally'.
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