Victorian enquiry agent Cyrus Barker

[Zone Fighter]

Anybody here reading Will Thomas' novels about private enquiry agent Cyrus Barker and his assistant Thomas Llewelyn?

Although Will Thomas is an American living in Oklahoma he sets his novels in Victorian England. His character Cyrus Barker is more eccentric than Sherlock Holmes.

There are three books and a fourth coming soon:
Some Danger Involved
To Kingdom Come
The Limehouse Text
The Hellfire Conspiracy

The first three involve different ethic groups. In the first a British Jew is murdered. Second Irish terrorists blow up Scotland Yard. Third involves the Chinese and a forbidden martial arts secret.

Although of Scottish decent Cyrus Barker spent his childhood in the orient. Becoming a cabin boy after being orphaned he set to sea. Eventually become a ship's captain. Now retired from the sea he makes his living as a private enquiry agent (he dislikes the term detective). He is familiar with many different cultures. He's fond of foreign food (Chinese, Italian, Hungarian, etc) long before they were popular in England. He has one of the first Pekingese dogs in Europe, loves his oriental garden and is a skilled martial artists as well as an expert marksman. In the first book he takes on enemies by throwing coins with sharpened edges at them. He also has a coat designed to fire hidden pistols through specially placed holes. He owns an extensive library, of old books, he doesn't read anything "modern". A religious man he tells his new assistant that a sucessful enquirey agent begins with prayer and meditation, in order to have a connection with the source of all knowledge. He attends the church where Charles Spurgeon is pastor.

Thomas Llewelyn, a Welshman living in England, is out of work and depressed after the sudden death of his wife of just a few months. He's on the point of suicide when Cyrus Barker hires him as his assistant. He starts out with no experience as an "enquiry agent" but he has experience as an office clerc, which theoretically is what he's hired for. In actual fact he ends up in the field, sometimes with his boss and sometimes alone. He learns to enjoy eating foreign foods. And although he doesn't mind his boss having him lift weights to get him in better shape he does not enjoy the strange oriental exercises Barker insists on him performing in the garden every day. He can't object because Barker is not only paying his wages but also providing home, clothes and meals.

In addition to his Welsh assistant Barker has a Jewish butler and a French chef as well as several oriental gardeners. Chef and assistant seem to like each other, but butler and assistant don't. Llewelyn's not antisemitic, his best friend is a Jew, he and the butler simply rub each other the wrong way. Barker's previous assistant was Chinese. He died on a case.

Will Thomas borrows his plots from things that were actually going on in Victorian England and some supporting characters are based on real people.

I've read the first book and have just started the second. The Lincoln city libraries still consider the third as new and wouldn't take it off display to send it to a closer branch to me.

[Xenorama ™]

sounds very cool and interesting. i'll have to look into checking a book out, now that i live near the library!

[Zone Fighter]

I finished the second book. Will Thomas doesn't like characters never seen in the rest of the book appearing as the guilty party in the end. So his perpetrator is someone who appears throught the story.

Barker likes daily, scortching hot baths. Another thing he picked up in the orient. Although he likes well cooked meals he'll eat poorly made food without complaint. He never cooks anything himself. He enjoys green tea.

I forgot to mention that Llewelyn served a few months in jail for petty theft and as a result does not trust policeman or other government officials. He does not enjoy green tea. Etienne the French chef makes coffee for him and allows him to make his own coffee if he's not there. Thomas LLewelyn is the only person privilaged to touch the chef's coffee pot.