Ring of Terror

Rating:
Summary: Great Setting, So-So Story
Review: The highly visible presence of political exiles and Jewish refugees from Imperial Russia was a notable feature of turn of the century London. Their visible presence was also a volatile one, as exiles and imperial operatives waged operations and counter-operations on English soil, occasionally culminating in spectacular crimes. Indeed, at various points, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, and Gorky all lived in Whitechapel. Joseph Conrad used this backdrop to initiate the modern spy novel with his 1907 book The Secret Agent, which he based on an anarchist plot to blow up the Greenwich Observatory in 1894. Gilbert sets his brief police procedural in 1911 amidst these budding Bolsheviks and well-armed anarchists, with the Siege of Sidney Street as his historical touchstone.

Luke and Joe are two young London policemen originally from the same rural village who are getting their feet wet in the big city. Following the real life murder of a policeman during a sensational robbery of a jewelry store by an anarchist gang and the subsequent media event of the Siege of Sidney Street, the duo are assigned to the task force put together to watch the Russian émigré community and track down its dangerous elements. (Here, Donald Rumbleow's 1988 book The Houndsditch Murders and the Siege of Sidney Street seems to have been a main reference work.) Their efforts, sometimes bumbling, sometimes crafty, often lucky, are interspersed with policy discussions of their superiors and Home Secretary Winston Churchill, as the government attempts to maintain rule of law.

While from a historical point of view, it is important to understand the constraints the police worked under at the time-most notably being outgunned-the mix of high policy and ground-level footwork doesn't come together particularly well. There are altogether too many mid and senior level policemen characters whose comings and going distract from the story. Many of the bad guys are based on real figures, and in some cases real names are used-although it should be noted that the real life Sidney Street gang was Latvian. Gilbert has obviously studied the period in great detail, and brings it to life, but the story remains disappointingly flat given the exotic material he has to work with. Most of the book is set in London's East End, and as it's geography plays an integral role in the story, one wishes the publisher had included a map or two of the area.