nerd teacher [books] reviewed Death at Victoria Dock by Kerry Greenwood (Phryne Fisher, #4)
Could've Used Anything Else as the Backdrop...
2 stars
Much like how the episode of the show based on this book is among the worst in the TV series, this book is among the worst in the series of books.
I'm not entirely sure why the Siege of Sidney Street took such a strong hold on Greenwood, prompting her to use anarchists as a bunch of criminals (and the only good anarchist in the book is one who has given up any element of 'the fight'). For all the focus on anarchists (and even the inclusion of communists), very little is even engaged with; the politics of the anarchists in the book are nothing like many of the anarchists of the time (the 1920s) that Greenwood could've also engaged with in order to flesh them out more as... people who hold particular views of politics.
No, these anarchists are excessively violent bank robbers who want to kill …
Much like how the episode of the show based on this book is among the worst in the TV series, this book is among the worst in the series of books.
I'm not entirely sure why the Siege of Sidney Street took such a strong hold on Greenwood, prompting her to use anarchists as a bunch of criminals (and the only good anarchist in the book is one who has given up any element of 'the fight'). For all the focus on anarchists (and even the inclusion of communists), very little is even engaged with; the politics of the anarchists in the book are nothing like many of the anarchists of the time (the 1920s) that Greenwood could've also engaged with in order to flesh them out more as... people who hold particular views of politics.
No, these anarchists are excessively violent bank robbers who want to kill Stalin while living in Australia. And while there are examples of anarchist bank robberies, I think it'd behoove the author to have (when she was alive) looked into them and why they did what they did; it would've supported her story a lot better to actually engage with the politics rather than just use figures from the Siege of Sidney Street as characters in her setting and giving them nothing more than flat "It's for the Revolution!" commentary that has nothing else supporting it. And that's really what makes this story fall flat to begin with, even if it could be interesting otherwise.
Oh, and all of the anarchists are labelled at varying times as foreigners (by white characters), which I think severely undermines what anarchist history Australia does have. It perpetuates, whether intended or not, the belief that anarchists are always external and foreign elements sent to bring destruction, which is bafflingly ironic when you look at the supported governments and regimes of many countries (who don't need to commit bank robberies to steal from anyone; they can do it in broad daylight and with the simple scribble of a pen).
If you delete the whole concept of a 'Latvian anarchist plot' and change it to anything else (a gang of white men wanting to rob a bank), you literally would have the same story. Instead of visiting random socialist gatherings or Latvian clubs, the same effect would've been achieved by visiting pubs and taverns.
As a bonus, though, it has given me some historical rabbit holes to fall down like the Alice of research.