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SHRINES OF GAIETY by Kate Atkinson

Two teenagers, Freda and Florence, have run away from home in the last 1920s to seek fame and fortune as dancers in London.  Freda has some talent, but Florence—not so much.  After pocketing an unexpected inheritance, Gwendolen Kelling dashes off from her Yorkshire home and her job as a librarian to search for the girls, at the behest of Freda’s half-sister.  Gwendolen and a policeman named Frobisher find that they can help one another out if Gwendolen will do some undercover snooping at the Amethyst, a bar owned by the notorious Nellie Coker, who has recently been released from prison.  Gwendolen proves herself to be calm and capable in an emergency and finds herself managing Nellie’s swankiest watering hole.  Gwendolen may be the heroine of this novel, but Nellie’s six children—2 men and 4 women—are the colorful characters here, particularly the men.  I would say that all six are adults, but several of them don’t really fit that category in terms of their behavior.  London does not come off very well, either, as the police force is mostly corrupt if not downright dangerous to those it is supposed to protect, and the city is rife with pickpockets and purse snatchers.  The author handles all of the characters, plots and subplots with her usual deftness, and her way with words always delights.  One of my favorite passages is on page 147, in a paragraph regarding three of Nellie’s daughters:

“Both Betty and Shirley were excellent Dancers, almost professionally spry, unlike Edith, who had two left feet.  (‘Even possible three,’ Betty said.)  They had talked about setting up a dance academy within one of the clubs, where members would pay extra to learn the latest dances or polish up the old ones. Nellie was ruminating on the idea.  They doubted she would ever digest it.”



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SHRINES OF GAIETY by Kate Atkinson

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