~ The Spies of Shilling Lane, by Jennifer Ryan ~
A spy story set in WWII England featuring a middle-aged mother sounds like the perfect novel for a Sunday afternoon with a cup of tea but, alas, The Spies of Shilling Lane is ultimately disappointing on many levels.
Mrs Braithwaite, the protagonist of Jennifer Ryan’s book, is a thoroughly British battle-axe. She had
a sturdy frame, which she felt gave her lack of height more gusto. Her short hair was still a rich brown despite her fifty years, her face large and uncompromisingly oblong, her mouth drawn effortlessly into a frown.
She is also a snob, a nosey parker, cold-hearted, cross and aggressive. In the wake of a divorce, demoted from her ‘rightful position’ as head of the village Women’s Volunteer Service, she suddenly decides to travel to London (in the middle of the Blitz!) to visit her only daughter Betty, more to enable the plot than for any logical reason. Betty, it turns out, has been missing for a few days, and Mrs B and her hapless sidekick Mr Norris plunge into the murky waters of detective work, spying, fascists, MI5, and cryptography.
The plot is unlikely at best, and ludicrous at worst. The overbearing Mrs. B, whose forte is browbeating people into submission, instantly becomes a capable spy who can follow professional MI5 men on high alert without being caught (she leaps into bushes when they turn around). MI5 leaves their own operatives out in the cold, basically shrugging when they are captured, even though they are just in another part of London. Someone escapes from captivity by falling out of a van. The fascists hold top-secret anti-government meetings where bombings and blueprints are discussed, but they let anyone wander in unchallenged.
The author is apparently an editor herself, which makes the lack of editing in this novel very puzzling. Every character has had an unhappy childhood with a dark secret — Mr. Norris (the landlord) and his unwell brother, Mrs. B and her class-conscious aunt, Betty and Mrs B — and each of these provides yet another side-alley for the main plot. The history between Betty and her mother is expounded over many pages of detailed description, rather than being shown by their interactions. Mrs. B’s exposure to the Blitz causes a dramatic personality transformation, during which her thoughts are displayed like a ponderous voice-over that goes on for many pages.
At one point, Mrs B is in a shelter during the Blitz: this section is stronger and holds hints of what the book could have been. Otherwise, the writing exudes clichés: “a burly bald-headed man who looked like a leader of the criminal underworld. An angry snarl issued from his gold-toothed mouth.”
Other sentences have odd words, overwrought imagery, or inexplicable emotions:
The man chuckled chaotically.
‘chaotically’?
A cheer went up, echoing through the roof like the squall of seagulls over split fishing nets. [..] She felt the whole of her being fall like a heavy stone.
Blanche’s father, she’d sneered, had been taken before the war by cancer.
Why would a random neighbour sneer when talking about cancer?
Once the mystery is solved and the evildoers are caught, there is another chapter. And another, and another. The events get even more unlikely, and readers may well give up before the end.
The Spies of Shilling Lane, by Jennifer Ryan. Crown, 2019.
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