It’s a detective story featuring an old flame coming through the door and asking for help. So far, rather standard stuff, yes? However, this tale is with a queer twist, so the ante is considerably higher. Set just after WWII, this is a time when being known as queer was a certain way to lose your job, your promotion, your friends, your reputation or even your life. (If the conservative right have their way, we could be seeing those times again. So this book is very opportune.)
The narrative starts in a smoky club. It’s not seedy or decrepit. In fact, it sparkles with glitter, color, music and handily poured drinks. It’s a gay bar that welcomes all types and the atmosphere within is lively, wistful or upbeat, depending on the singer. Just the place for a disgraced ex-cop to hang out his shingle…but, even so, this detective’s former job description doesn’t endear him to the clientele.
Being disliked on both sides of the law creates a feeling of loneliness, which is something the protagonist shares with the people who mingle in the club. Welcoming or not, the Ruby is only a temporary refuge and offers a fragile security. Like the speakeasies of the Roaring 20s, the place can be raided at any time by cops trying to amuse themselves with arrests, closing down the joint or assaulting the clientele. Andy has to dodge shunning from the customers and the possibility that old comrades from the precinct might take great pleasure in arresting him and pummeling him senseless…if he even managed to survive arrest.
We are immersed immediately in this atmosphere: the interior of the Ruby, the exterior hostility of a time period between fear of Germanic rule and Communist terror, the tension of people just trying to live their lives while in constant fear of blackmail or worse from being caught at the wrong time in the wrong place with the wrong person. Mr. Rosen has become quite adept at placing us within the minds of his characters and engendering a convincing milieu and time. I remember the first time I encountered his writing in “All Men of Genius” and he was far less assured in his writing than I find him to be now.
However, I formulate my present opinion based on only the first few chapters of “The Bell in the Fog”. I was fooled that way with “All Men of Genius”, initially praising its characters and plotline only to be sorely disappointed after reading the entire novel. Perhaps “The Bell in the Fog” will prove to be superior to that earlier effort.
The narrative starts in a smoky club. It’s not seedy or decrepit. In fact, it sparkles with glitter, color, music and handily poured drinks. It’s a gay bar that welcomes all types and the atmosphere within is lively, wistful or upbeat, depending on the singer. Just the place for a disgraced ex-cop to hang out his shingle…but, even so, this detective’s former job description doesn’t endear him to the clientele.
Being disliked on both sides of the law creates a feeling of loneliness, which is something the protagonist shares with the people who mingle in the club. Welcoming or not, the Ruby is only a temporary refuge and offers a fragile security. Like the speakeasies of the Roaring 20s, the place can be raided at any time by cops trying to amuse themselves with arrests, closing down the joint or assaulting the clientele. Andy has to dodge shunning from the customers and the possibility that old comrades from the precinct might take great pleasure in arresting him and pummeling him senseless…if he even managed to survive arrest.
We are immersed immediately in this atmosphere: the interior of the Ruby, the exterior hostility of a time period between fear of Germanic rule and Communist terror, the tension of people just trying to live their lives while in constant fear of blackmail or worse from being caught at the wrong time in the wrong place with the wrong person. Mr. Rosen has become quite adept at placing us within the minds of his characters and engendering a convincing milieu and time. I remember the first time I encountered his writing in “All Men of Genius” and he was far less assured in his writing than I find him to be now.
However, I formulate my present opinion based on only the first few chapters of “The Bell in the Fog”. I was fooled that way with “All Men of Genius”, initially praising its characters and plotline only to be sorely disappointed after reading the entire novel. Perhaps “The Bell in the Fog” will prove to be superior to that earlier effort.