Chris Nickson’s latest book takes us back to Leeds in the 1820s, to the noisy, dangerous world of thief-taker Simon Westow. The story takes place in a time of change for Leeds; the population is rapidly expanding, old buildings are being torn down to make way for the new, and Westow himself is becoming more aware of his own mortality.
Westow’s had a few close shaves where it’s only thanks to his spiky young assistant, Sally, that he’s escaped serious injury, and he feels like his instincts are slowing. There’s a hint of vulnerability to him that we haven’t seen before; he relies on Sally a lot more than he’d care to admit and is dealing with unfamiliar feelings of anxiety about whether or not he’s losing his touch, and the effect that might have on his wife and two young sons. This is the only life he’s known.
Them Without Pain: the beginning
The book starts off with a tale of missing silverware; Westow is hired by Sir Robert Foley to find some silver cups that have apparently been stolen by a servant. But anyone who has read any of Nickson’s books before will know that this is only the start, and it’s not long before a secret room is discovered with something unexpected inside and things take a darker turn.
The thing I like about these books is the way normal, everyday life is portrayed against the backdrop of a mystery. You always come away from a Chris Nickson book feeling like you’ve learnt something, like you’ve had a history lesson, without being preached at.
The world of the 1820s
This is a world where everyone ages quickly, from the children who are forced to grow up hard and fast on the streets, to the adults who are worn down by the sheer relentless slog of everyday life.
There are little snapshots of life in those times: women not being allowed in pubs (something that only changed in recent history), the blind fiddler on Boar Lane, Kate the pie-seller, the smell of horse dung, and the smoke from the factories. There are so many minor, satellite characters in these books that as a reader you come away wanting to know more; each one could feature in their own book – Nickson’s world is never-ending.
The obvious grey, miserable poverty is described in a matter-of-fact way; not glamourising it, just telling it how it was and leaving us to make our own conclusions.
Female characters as a driving force
As with all Nickson’s books, the female characters are a huge driving force in this story, they’re never just token women, and Jane in particular is a fascinating character and you get the sense that both her and Simon are battling demons, and neither of them knows where they fit in the world.
Jane in crisis
We’ve slowly been learning her backstory, particularly in the last book, ‘The Scream of Sins’, and she also seems to be going through a crisis. She’s trusted with more responsibility, and as a result of this she feels rusty, like she’s also losing her touch, but then she’s almost ashamed at how easily the old ways come back to her when needed.
She seems to be trying to reconcile her current ‘comfortable’ life living with Mrs Shields (another increasingly interesting character, I’d love to know more about her background too, please, Chris) with her traumatic past when she had to literally fight for her survival. She’s having frequent nightmares and it feels like her anger and frustration have been building up over a lifetime of being treated badly.
It’s almost as though she’s representing all the women who have, to coin a modern term, had enough of men’s shit.
Street smart Sally
And then we have Sally, a small, streetwise girl of indeterminate age who is more than capable of looking after herself; always one step behind Simon, ready with her knife poised to (literally at times) save his life. Another character who is torn.
Despite being given comfortable lodgings with Simon and his family, and a steady wage, she spends her spare time back with the street urchins ‘Sallys’ Kingdom’, who follow her around and see her as their leader. She feels responsible for them and gives them money and food, as well as feeling their pain when bad things happen to them.
More substance needed
The only woman I feel needs a bit more substance is Simon’s wife Rosie, who sometimes feels like an afterthought, and in fact you can sometimes sense that from her. Although when she does get involved she can more than hold her own and the fact is, as a wife and mother in those times, those roles would have taken up all of her time. I’m not sure any of us can really comprehend how back-breakingly tough, and time consuming, day to day life was then.
Leeds then and Leeds now
While this book isn’t as dark as the last one, it can still be quite a tough read, which of course is fitting as they were tough times. But Nickson is able to describe awful things without being too graphic. Apart from a couple of scenes you won’t want to read while eating your breakfast, he’s able to describe a situation with only the suggestion of violence – which is always simmering under the surface – because as with anything, our own imagination is much worse, much more personalised than someone else’s and is therefore more powerful.
It’s both reassuring and frustrating that the main themes of the book, those of inequality and corruption in offices of power, are still problems our society is dealing with two hundred years later. But this is why these books are so clever, they’re a reminder that human nature stays the same, wherever we are in history, and we need to not become complacent.
I defy anyone to read this book and then not want to take a stroll around Leeds, to the places mentioned; I know he’s definitely made me look up more as I walk around, and I look forward to his next book and to finding out which part of Leeds history he’s going to bring to life next.
