Article archive / December 2018
Originally published: . Volume 9, No. 12. Source pages: 14.
Stephen Gallagher's work is delicious. I have always loved it, but the recent work set in the early 1900s in England is particularly engaging. Of course, I'm not that old and I never hung around England's various parts during this period, but Gallagher makes it easy to understand the vernacular of the times, and to see the sights and smell the odors; you feel like you are there.
This novella, Melody James, is about a young woman "of deceptive youth," the daughter of William James (not the psychologist), who took his family out of Liverpool for a life on the road in a theatrical troupe playing one of the Wild West shows that were so popular during the period. The "family's fortune lay in costumes, weapons, wagons, some practised skills, and a book of dates." This was The Authentic William James show, but he "couldn't disguise the fact that the heart had gone out of the act. My father could split a playing card in your hand with a bullwhip, shoot a pipe out of your mouth while looking over his shoulder in a mirror, outline a human target with his giant knives. What could I do?" (from The Authentic William James)
In the novella, we pick up Melody, a card reader at the last afternoon of the fair. Sir Anthony Gair Rathbone, the British government's Assistant Director of Intelligence, wants to see if she can help him. (Rathbone would later be investigated by Sebastian Becker, who was engaged to work off the books to expose the misdeeds of Chancery lunatics.)
Rathbone gets a reading. Melody sees duplicity in his trade in some official capacity. This "reading" that was so close to the truth is enough for him to eventually engage her to convince a reporter being held by British intelligence that he should become a spy asset when he goes back to work with the Bolsheviks in Russia.
No real spoiler alert here, but Rathbone did gain a promotion and a knighthood for his intelligence work, much as Melody had predicted. This does occur before his downfall. The real deal is that if you read with any of your Clinical Psychology acumen on alert, you will certainly enjoy how Melody "reads" others so accurately and effectively.
This article is part of a historical newspaper archive. Read the original issue for its original layout, photographs and graphics.