Book Review: Pearlhanger

Book Review: Pearlhanger by Jonathan Gash

Lovejoy is a “divvy” (presumably from “diviner”), a person who can just feel if an antique is genuine by standing near it.  This is a great help in his career as an antiques dealer.  But just because he’s got a gift of his own doesn’t mean he believes in anything else supernatural.  So he’s a bit put out when he’s asked to attend a seance with Donna Vernon, who’s looking for her lost husband.  Missing person cases aren’t normally in his baliwick either.

However, this particular missing person is an antiques dealer himself, who vanished while on a cross-country buying sweep.  So Lovejoy finds that he’s been roped into the hunt.  Things quickly get suspicious, as Mr. Vernon doesn’t seem to be very good at antique hunting, and the actual end of the voyage appears to be a fabulous pearl pendant known as “the Siren”.  And then the medium gets murdered after saying she has another message from beyond….

This is the ninth Lovejoy book; I have not read any of the earlier ones, nor have I seen the television adaptaion.   He’s described in the back cover blurb as a “rake”; he’s promiscuous, sexist, self-centered, loves pulling nasty tricks on people and is often in trouble with the law.  On the other hand, he sometimes does quite nice things for people as long as it will also make him a profit of some sort.  That, and the fact that his narration makes it clear he’s easily led around by his appetites, makes him bearable.

A typical moment of his irritating side is when his apprentice Eric for once actually checks to see if an object is genuine, and refuses to buy it.  Lovejoy berates him, because this particular fake was extremely valuable in itself, neglecting to consider he hadn’t told the lad this important detail.

Most of the mystery part of the story is solved about halfway through when the murderer actually confesses to Lovejoy–but our protagonist has no proof, and must come up with a clever scheme involving antiques to see that some form of justice is served.

I am told that the television series smoothed out Lovejoy’s sharper edges quite a bit (for example, giving him a steady love interest as opposed to chasing any likely tail in the neighborhood.)  This is not a book for those who prefer the hero be more morally upright than not.  The ending drives home his moral ambiguity.

But if you liked the TV show, or have a fondness for sleazy mystery protagonists, this is an amusing read.