Just Finished Reading: The Devil’s Acre by Matthew Plampin (FP: 2010) [404pp]

London, 1853. It was the opportunity of a lifetime and one he was determined to grasp with both hands. There were risks of course, there were always risks. Being associated with someone like Samuel Colt, someone so driven, so mercurial and so secretive would test his skills to the limit. Colt’s ability to make enemies wherever he went would be a challenge – both his commercial rivals (dismissed by Colt as fools or worse) and his political enemies in the British establishment (equally denigrated by Colt) would make determined adversaries regardless of the time and place, in London as war with Russia became daily more likely powerful forces were being arranged against the foundation of Colt’s first European factory complex. But Edward Lowry, now Colt’s personal secretary, had other things on his mind. He had become entranced by one of Colt’s female workforce and was seeking to know her better. Caroline Knox, however, had things on her mind too. Her Irish brother-in-law was involved in a radical group known as the Molly Maguire’s who are determined to get their hands on some of Mr Colt’s merchandise to cause havoc and death amongst those held responsible for depredations in Ireland. Caroline knows just were to get the weapons – a secret stash has been accumulating in the basement of the Colt works. Each gun in perfect condition and each without a British government insisted serial number. Their final destination is a mystery but the secrecy surrounding them is also an opportunity – if only to get the Maguire’s out of her life for good.

After enjoying his previous book, The Street Philosopher, I was looking forward to this one. Located in a similar time period – in this case just prior to the Crimea War rather than during it – the novel focused on the home front rather than the battlefront. I initially liked the main character Edward as a young man making his way in the modern world of big business but as the pages turned I became more and more frustrated with him. Colt himself was larger than life and was someone I ended up wanting to know far more about in real life/history and I’ll dig into that at some point. I was disappointed in Edward’s relationship with Caroline which, I thought, had the potential of being central to the book but was, I thought both underdeveloped and too easily side-lined. Likewise with the nascent ‘terrorist’ group could have become central to the plot as they sought to acquire the best firearms on the market – in this case the classic Colt Navy – but they were relegated to a sub-plot and impediment to Edward’s and Caroline’s relationship. Overall, despite some good writing I found the novel lacked focus. There was probably 3 or 4 good stories in here but I found the failure to give any of them enough space to grow rather frustrating. His previous novel had that focus and was, therefore in my opinion, a superior beast. It’s fair to say that this book was not a complete mess, far from it. It certainly has not put me off the author and you’ll probably see his name again at some point. Despite being somewhat disappointing this was still a more than reasonable read and has at least prompted me to read more about the era and more specifically about the British gun trade of the time.