{"id":901,"date":"2012-04-25T06:25:41","date_gmt":"2012-04-25T06:25:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=901"},"modified":"2012-10-22T17:13:50","modified_gmt":"2012-10-22T17:13:50","slug":"fear-in-the-sunlight-by-nicola-upson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=901","title":{"rendered":"Fear in the Sunlight by Nicola Upson"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Published by Faber 5 April 2012<\/strong><\/p>\n

432pp, paperback, \u00a312.99<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reviewed by Debbie Taylor<\/strong><\/p>\n

I approached Fear in<\/em> the Sunlight <\/em>full of warm anticipation \u2013 that tasteful art-deco cover; that setting, in the architectural haven of Portmeirion (backdrop of the cult series The Prisoner, for those long enough in the teeth to remember); and featuring none other than Alfred Hitchcock, plus assorted stars of stage and screen \u2013 all this and a lesbian love triangle thrown in for good measure\u2026 What\u2019s not to like?<\/p>\n

The novel is set in two time periods: 1954, when retiring detective Archie Penrose is called on to help investigate a spate of serial killings; and 1936 when a previous sequence of murders took place in Portmeirion. The 1936 murders were \u2018solved\u2019 at the time by the apparent suicide of one of the suspects, but the more recent killings raise a question mark over this conclusion.<\/p>\n

Penrose happened to be holidaying in the area in 1936 when he encountered his old flame, Golden Age novelist Josephine Tey, there to discuss the filming of one of her crime thrillers with Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock is doing a recce for a different movie and auditioning potential cast members, who duly arrive one by one at the main hotel in the town, and are provided with motive, subplot and back-story.<\/p>\n

So far, so Josephine Tey \u2013 which is, I suppose, the whole point. But (and I\u2019m sure you can feel this \u2018but\u2019 coming) this is a very (very) hard novel to get into if you\u2019re someone who appreciates pace and character development. Six murders, plus at least ten more additional main characters, plus assorted hangers-on, are all introduced in the first thirty pages, which leaves little room for in-depth exploration. As a result, it\u2019s hard to care about any of them, let alone distinguish between major and minor players. Even the lovely Josephine Tey, the putative main protagonist of what is billed, after all, as the \u2018fourth novel featuring Josephine Tey\u2019, is hard to distinguish in this enormous cast-list \u2013 despite being embroiled in a clandestine love affair with actress Marta, who is in turn enmeshed with the lovely Lydia.<\/p>\n

Exactly fifty pages in, in one of many book-within-a-book-within-a-book references, Hitchcock is ploughing through the Tey novel his wife wants him to film and comments: \u2018I think it\u2019s very, very bad.\u2019 \u2018How much have you actually read, Hitch?\u2019 demands his wife. \u2018The first fifty pages,\u2019 he says despondently.<\/p>\n

To be fair, it does get going by about page one hundred, when it emerges that Hitch has paid aging matinee idol and incorrigible lothario Leyton Turnbull (aka Henry Draycott, evil ex-hubby of local recluse Gwynneth \u2013 oh, do keep up \u2013 whose daughter Taran disappeared without trace years earlier, in one of many elaborate retrospective subplots, in this case involving the lynching of a gypsy) to stage a fake suicide to see how the other actors react\u2026 By which time I have restarted the book four times, been driven to listing characters to keep track of them, and have pretty much lost the will to live.<\/p>\n

Having said all that, there will be many readers who adore the liberally and lovingly larded historical period detail and the plethora of (presumably true \u2013 why include them otherwise?) biographical nuggets about Tey\u2019s love life and Hitchcock\u2019s relationship with wife Alma Reville; and relish the elaborate knitting up and unravelling of this intricate Arran cardie of a plot. And it is very elegantly written, and no doubt carefully researched by Cambridge graduate and nonfiction author Nicola Upson. With reading groups always on the lookout for factual material they can get their teeth into, there is a ready audience for historical material presented in fictional guise. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer novels with a few complex and compelling central characters in which the action kicks off well before page fifty.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Debbie Taylor<\/p>\n

I approached Fear in the Sunlight<\/em> full of warm anticipation \u2013 that tasteful art-deco cover; that setting, in the architectural haven of Portmeirion (backdrop of the cult series The Prisoner<\/em>, for those long enough in the tooth to remember); and featuring none other than Alfred Hitchcock, plus assorted stars of stage and screen \u2013 all this and a lesbian love triangle thrown in for good measure\u2026 What\u2019s not to like?[…] in Reviews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-fiction-and-non-fiction","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=901"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":945,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901\/revisions\/945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}