What do you do when you pitch your latest idea for a novel and your publisher says it’s not for them – drop it and move on or persevere? Vine Street had been gestating for a long time, it was something Nolan was deeply committed to. He ploughed on, re-thought elements of the story. One of the central plot lines became the subject of another author’s work and was handled so brilliantly that had to go*. The location changed but Nolan maintained his belief in the wider idea and the characters. Then the dreaded lockdown intervened but the upside was that it gave Nolan the time and space to concentrate on Vine Street. Maybe the publisher didn’t get it first time round or maybe Nolan didn’t pitch it well but when he returned to the them with a draft of Vine Street – they wanted it, they loved it.
It’s a different beast than you might expect from Nolan. An historical novel from a writer known for his crime novels Past Life and After Dark, both of which have a contemporary prose style and sensibilities. Nolan’s trust in his project is about to pay off, the critics also praise Vine Street. It’s a leap forward in terms of scope and ambition for an author who has already attracted praise for his previous writing. Vine Street has an energy and an atmosphere that is captivating, it’s clearly a labour of love, a genuinely inspired piece of writing. It’s a thriller, a beautifully crafted character study and a righteous addition to the canon of London novels that illuminate something of the city and find a way of bringing it’s past to life. So let’s start with that.
At the risk of alienating the country there is such a thing as a ‘London novel’. In the same way you could argue Ellroy gives us LA and Peace Tokyo, Nolan pins London to the page. London like any place can be a mere backdrop but there’s a more intense portrait of the city in Vine Street. Peter Ackroyd’s wonderfully atmospheric Hawksmoor, Cathi Unsworth’s Bad Penny Blues and Joe Thomas’s Bent are examples of books that fit the bill and now Vine Street is a player too. When an author picks up the gauntlet of channelling the heart of the city, a misstep can undermine the story. It’s not so much about the research and detail as it is about getting to the emotional core of the city, touching on its people and the complexity of its political and cultural life. So when Geats, the main protagonist, turns a corner into a Soho street we’re walking beside him and seeing what he sees. This works because Nolan is not nostalgic, this is real not romantic love. This feels like the dirty, ugly, beautiful city.
Let’s take one aspect of that hard edged portrait. Institutional corruption and incompetence in the Metropolitan police it’s one of the themes here. The British police procedural often gives the police an easy ride, seeing corrupt cops are one offs and there’s no appearance of a creeping institutional rot. Yet the Metropolitan Police record is chequered. If you live in London right now do you trust the police? If you are black, or Asian or a woman what then? It’s a more complex question than it should be. Despite the image in the press, in books and on film over many decades the Metropolitan Police has always been an unruly and dysfunctional leviathan. The boys club attitude, misogyny, racism and incompetence were ever present. And in addition it’s been politicised by successive Home Secretaries. That’s not to say all London coppers are bad, of course not, but collectively it could be so much better and there have always been too many bad apples. There was no golden age of policing on the city, just a false impression of it. Rather than Dixon of Dock Green Vine Street’s representation of the Met is not rose tinted. It’s one facet of the gritty realism that underpin the narrative.
This is an example of how the crime novel can be a social novel in the grand tradition of Dickens or Dostoyevsky dealing as it does with issues as broad as; what value is placed on a human life, racism, poverty, class and privilege, misogyny and corruption. As with all good novels that strike a chord it’s because so much in the novel is relevant today.
Vine Street is a long novel, it spans decades, encompasses the stories of a lot of people, as such this is a rich character study, the most impressive element of this novel. This is an intense portrait of three people; Geats and his partner Casser and their female colleague Billie. Also throughout the novel minor characters have a strong presence and their fates matter to us. In the case of Geats and Casser, and over a long period of time, we witness the way life experience shapes them. Perhaps it’s fair to say, corrupts them; mostly it’s the unexpected, the things beyond their control and the people they meet through the job that impact upon them. As these guys are policemen their integrity matters as they are mired in suffering and witness to the terrible things people do. They are susceptible to the institutional incompetence and corruption and we see how they buck against or succumb to it. What Nolan does is give us portraits that really nail the essence of the two men. They are both bound to Billie, lover, mother figure and friend. It’s a subtle portrait of Casser discovery of himself but Geats is vastly complex. A mass of contradictions and incumbrancers, he’s not a good man and yet he has lines he won’t cross and many good points. You will root for this deeply flawed man. Like Philip Marlowe he walks the same dark streets as the villains, his hands aren’t clean but he has his limits. Subconsciously holding the ability to beat a man and save a girl from a beating without seeing any hypocrisy in his actions. It’s a masterly portrait of how a man with alcoholism inherited from his mother, would become a cop, lose his way, regain his purpose, succumb to life. A man laden with catholic guilt and white knight syndrome and yet he represents hope because he’s true not good. We can empathize.
So what’s it all about? 2002. Two detectives turn up at the home of elderly couple Billie and Mark Cassar. Afraid of what he might say Billie says Mark is too ill to answers questions. It’s as she feared, two bodies have been found in a field in the Cotswolds and one of them is believed to be former Metropolitan detective sergeant Leon Geats. Now it may all come out, the story of Geats, Cassar and Billie and the Soho murders that began in 1936 but didn’t end there. There are no records of Geats after 1936 but Billie throws them a bone, she saw Geats after the war.
- WPC Billie Massey finds Sergeant Leon Geats, C Division – Clubs and Vice, passed out on the stairs of his apartment block, another night lost to drink. They’ve found a body in a Soho flat. Archer Street is home to The Windmill, Cairo Club and The Globe, run down seedy joints that the young of Bloomsbury flock to for illicit entertainment; girls, Jazz played by black musicians, alcohol and drugs. The body is on the bed; still dressed, legs akimbo, one stocking tied around her neck. A Piccadilly Circus street girl by the name of Fifi. In fact her real name is Josephine Martin and her traumatised daughter is found hiding in a cupboard. Geats and Billie get little Nell away from the scene. Nell is send to live with her only surviving relative Albert Mechanik, he was living off Fifi’s earnings, what future will she have with him? That bothers Geats, he won’t forget the child. The flying squad are brought in but Inspector Proudfoot, a company man and incompetent to boot, builds a narrative of a tragic woman, poverty stricken and desperate who commits suicide. Fortunately, the medical examiner Sir Bernard Spilsbury won’t buy it. A full investigation is launched but answers about what happened to Josephine are thin on the ground. Josephine is not the only victim and more will follow. Geats launches his own investigation.
Meanwhile, Russian pimp and trafficker, Max Kassel, is shot dead and that leads back to the same Soho club-land, gangs and underworld as Josephine inhabited. The new theory is that Red Max Kassel and Josephine are collateral in gang turf-war between the Jewish, Italian, Maltese crews.
This is a vast story encompassing a serial killer, gangland murderers, corrupt cops, Mosley and the British Union of fascists, the Secret Intelligence Service, pornography and prostitution and a skilful fusion of fictional and real characters reimagined by Nolan.
The mystery that Nolan weaves around the unsolved murders of the girls of Soho has it’s own path. It’s based loosely on real murders of the time, then as now, women involved in prostitution were incredibly vulnerable, unprotected and at the mercy of extreme male violence. The fact that the murders remain unsolved allows Nolan to speculate reflecting on how these crimes repeat over time. Bad Penny Blues by Cathi Unsworth speculates on a case from the 1950s, the distastefully named Hammersmith killings, known as the Jack The Stripper murders.
Vine Street has a big cast and big themes, it’s intricately woven plot explores questions of morality, judgement, expediency and how life is always in flux. It speaks to the experience of the victims. There are many colourful characters but you will be drawn to Geats, he is a wonderful creation. Nolan offers a satisfying resolution but with as many loose ends as possible – life is like that.
Victoria Selman’s interview Dominic Nolan for crimetime.fm is available via Apple, Google, Spotify, Podbean, Amazon et al.
Headline, hardback, out now.
*That Old Black Magic Cathy Unsworth
