Hardboiled Aberystwyth, a review of The Unbearable Lightness of Being in Aberystwyth by Malcolm Pryce

Louie Knight returns in The Unbearable Lightness of Being in Aberystwyth, another fun installment in Malcolm Pryce's Aberystwyth series of hardboiled detective pastiches. In the opening, Louie and his apprentice Calamity take on a rather unusual case. An organ grinder, Gabriel Bassett, wants them to find the truth behind something that happened in 1849 when a stable boy was hung for the rape, murder, and robbery of the daughter of a local squire who died in a fire. He wants the case solved in two weeks. Louie turns it over to Calamity who is close to getting her detective certificate and needs to submit a case dossier to complete her qualifications. The organ grinder is accompanied by his monkey, Cleopatra, who can communicate in sign language and whose husband, Major Tom, was an astronaut in the Welsh space program. Cleopatra is also pining for her son, Mr. Bojangles, who hasn't been seen in 15 years. She hopes that the detectives might find out something about him.

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We learn early on that Myfanwy, the love of Louie's life is wasting away due to the love potion she was given by arch criminal Brainbocs in Last Tango in Aberystwyth. When she disappears, saving her becomes Louie's sole focus.

In addition to the two main stories, at least three other story lines spin off but manage to together in the end.

 If you are a reader of classic hardboiled detective stories you will appreciate this pastiche which hits all the elements of those stories. You get the detective's witty similes

A row of doors led off with brass handles that rattled loosely in their sockets, like the hip joints of of the mistress who sat in the offices behind.

and wry cynicism

Llunos [chief of police] was not too worried about evidence since he could always invent what he lacked. And with time we had come to understand we were both fighting for the same thing. The only difference was one of approach — mine was more law-abiding.

and amusing observations

... he sat on the crate making tongue movements against the wall of his cheek as if he was trying to dislodge a piece of gristle. I hadn't see this approach before and if it was meant to heighten tension it was good.

and of course the detective gets conked on the head frequently.

Pryce also doesn't disappoint with his skewed view of this alternate Aberystwyth. Ice cream plays an unusual role in Aberystwyth daily life and here we get a discussion on the forensics of analyzing ice cream twists. There is even a book describing the different ways ice cream can be dispensed. It has to be a joke on Sherlock Holmes and his treatise on cigar ash.

And in a scene the warmed this retired librarian's heart, Louie attempts to use a library where the librarians do everything they can to keep people out. It's pretty funny. Louis momentarily confounds a librarian by using the library term periodical. The librarian has him pegged as someone who would want a book on tropical fish. And, thank you very much,  this library caters to readers and assumes that anyone who wants a lender's card is the sort of person who would run his finger under the words.

The has a lot of humour but also is much darker in the way the stories play out than the first two books. This fits into the hardboiled school of detective stories where there doesn't have to be a happy endings. I'm not sure depressed is the right word but there is nothing upbeat how the plot lines play out. A little melancholy is the state I was in as the book ended. The one feel-good bit was knowing that Aberystwyth now has two private detectives.

I have two more Aberystwyth books on my TBR shelf but I thinking I'll set them aside for a while I don't want to binge read them.