Murder in Grub Street

I am so not au courante. I started writing this posting about a series of mysteries I really like, only to discover, when checking a fact online, that the latest book in the series was published in 2005, with the titles I have read and was going to write about having come out much earlier. Ah, well. Maybe there's someone out there who's even more behind the times than I.

The books are in the Sir John Fielding Mystery series, by Bruce Alexander, and the one I just finished reading, Blind Justice, was actually the first novel in the series, though I'm reading it after having read two later ones. Like most people, I hate it when that happens; but I stumbled on the later books in my library -- Murder in Grub Street and Jack, Knave and Fool -- long before Blind Justice appeared among a bunch of donated books this past week.

Sir John Fielding is a blind magistrate in the London of the mid-1700s. There really was such a person, and he really was the half-brother of the more famous Henry Fielding (author of Tom Jones). The books are written from the viewpoint of a young orphan boy who becomes Sir John's assistant, after being falsely accused of thievery, and being brought before Sir John's court. Evidently that was quite a little racket in the bad old days: some innocent being set up by a gang of crooks to appear to have stolen something from one of them, and being dragged off to court, where the accusers may receive a "bounty" for bringing in a criminal. Fortunately for young Jeremy, the blind Sir John sees right through the bad guys' game, and takes a liking to Jeremy.

This is one of the things I like about these books: one learns, in an entertaining way, interesting tidbits about the everyday life of that place and time. Given my interest in history, and in other cultures, past or present, it's easy to see why I would enjoy such books. Indeed, I've written about other mystery series with historical settings that I've liked (see Note of May 1, 2009). In the Sir John books, I've also learned a bit more about the Bow Street Runners. I had a dim recollection of having heard of the BSR, without really knowing what or who they were. In effect, they were London's first profes-sional police department, organized by the Fielding brothers (Henry Fielding was also a magistrate, besides being a successful writer). The court was in Bow Street, and the "runners" were the constables who worked for the magistrate, going out to bring in people the court wanted to see, taking them off to jail when that was necessary. They carried clubs for banging obstinate heads, which became eventually the policeman's night stick.

But for all the fascinating historical detail, what most holds these books together, and gives them their greatest appeal, is the upright Fielding, with an earthy enjoyment of his food and his beer, a proud deter-mination to make his way around without assistance, to the extent possible, and his all too human vanity about his ability to distinguish among voices. He is a man of both compassion and integrity, besides being very smart. He is someone you can admire -- one always want to be able to do that with the hero of a mystery series -- and the fact that the fictional character is taken very much from the real-life character (as I learned when I consulted Wikipedia about him) makes him even more attractive.

I have discovered that there are many more Sir John novels that I have yet to read, which gives me great satisfaction. It's always a pleasure to discover new authors that you like, and to know you will be able to read more of their work.

I'll close this mini-review with the blurb from Newsday that appears on the back of Jack, Knave and Fool: "Historical fiction done this entertainingly is as close to time travel as we're likely to get."