The Ten Word Game

Rating:
Summary: Lovejoy Takes A Cruise
Review: Here's another wonderful entry in the long running, always entertaining Lovejoy series. Once again the "lovable rogue" - I know, it's a hackneyed phrase, but also most appropriate - Lovejoy, the antique specialist with questionable ethics, is up to his old tricks in his usual inimitable style.

Lovejoy is on the move, as usual the reason for this is to avoid capture, finding passage on a luxury liner for what could have been a very relaxing voyage. Of course, Lovejoy being Lovejoy, nothing is ever easy and a constant stream of unusual events soon enlivens the trip. These events shape his movements, backing him into a corner that puts him at his most imaginative in his bid to get out from under.

The Lovejoy books are completely amusing and provide clever mysteries and this one lives right up to that billing.

Rating:
Summary: Voyage to nowhere
Review: I had begun reading the Lovejoy series with the second or third book MANY years ago. However, maybe 8 or 10 years ago I stopped reading them because the series seemed to be stuck in a rut, focusing on aspects that I was much less interested in (what passes for Lovejoy's "romantic" life) instead of what I wanted (more with the scams and thefts).

I saw this new one on the shelf and decided to give it another try. Disappointing. I finished it last night and am still not exactly sure who all was involved in this conspiracy and why. I COULD go back and read the last couple of chapters, but it just didn't interest me enough to bother. Oh well. Maybe I'll give it another try in another 10 years.

Rating:
Summary: I won't go back again soon
Review: I had begun reading the Lovejoy series with the second or third book MANY years ago. However, maybe 8 or 10 years ago I stopped reading them because the series seemed to be stuck in a rut, focusing on aspects that I was much less interested in (what passes for Lovejoy's "romantic" life) instead of what I wanted (more with the scams and thefts).

I saw this new one on the shelf and decided to give it another try. Disappointing. I finished it last night and am still not exactly sure who all was involved in this conspiracy and why. I COULD go back and read the last couple of chapters, but it just didn't interest me enough to bother. Oh well. Maybe I'll give it another try in another 10 years.

Rating:
Summary: Great start fades into confusion, repetition
Review: I had high hopes for this book, the first Lovejoy mystery, after enjoying the character on tv and being an antiques buff. The book drew me in right away and I really enjoyed the first third or so. Then after repetitious scenes (escape, capture, escape, capture, on and on) and the introduction of a dozen minor characters that come and go without a meaningful role or purpose, I got bored. I finished it out of determination and in the hope that there would be a wonderful denoument that would tie all together, but there was no big payoff; just a lot of preposterous happenings and vague explanations. My sense was that the author went on a cruise and put everyone he met on the cruise into a story, no matter how it all fit together.

I won't give up on Gash though (Lovejoy's a great character and the writing has an enjoyable tone) and have an ealier Lovejoy mystery I'm hoping will be more like the beginning of The Ten Word Game, all the way through.

Rating:
Summary: Tedious, except for antiques hunters, maybe
Review: I much enjoyed the TV series based on Lovejoy and his crew, largely because I enjoyed the rural English locations and the portrayals by excellent English character actors. So I expected this, the first of Gash's books to come to hand, to be equally clever and to the point. No so. I found the characters too numerous and not particularly well developed, save for Lovejoy himself. And since much of the yarn takes place on a cruise ship, there are no locations to speak of. The frequent lapses into technical talk about how to identify various items was pretty tedious, although I expect antiques hunters would enjoy it. And anyway, if Lovejoy is a "divvy" who spots the real item by instinct, why has he bothered to learn so much technical stuff anyway, and why he hasn't he put his gift of divination to more lucrative use? Instead, he seems to get by as a not-too-successful forger/thief/con artist who's primary goal is sleeping with women. He's seems not the sort of scholar who's going to master a wealth of arcane minutiae.

Rating:
Summary: Tedious, except for antiques hunters, maybe
Review: I much enjoyed the TV series based on Lovejoy and his crew, largely because I enjoyed the rural English locations and the portrayals by excellent English character actors. So I expected this, the first of Gash's books to come to hand, to be equally clever and to the point. No so. I found the characters too numerous and not particularly well developed, save for Lovejoy himself. And since much of the yarn takes place on a cruise ship, there are no locations to speak of. The frequent lapses into technical talk about how to identify various items was pretty tedious, although I expect antiques hunters would enjoy it. And anyway, if Lovejoy is a "divvy" who spots the real item by instinct, why has he bothered to learn so much technical stuff anyway, and why he hasn't he put his gift of divination to more lucrative use? Instead, he seems to get by as a not-too-successful forger/thief/con artist who's primary goal is sleeping with women. He's seems not the sort of scholar who's going to master a wealth of arcane minutiae.

Rating:
Summary: The words are what it's about
Review: I would read this book just for the words - words I've never seen before, juicy new words, almost none of which appear in my dictionary since they turn out to be British slang. I fall for British writers the way some people fall for accents. "Black hair fungated above his straining belt." "Benjie would marmalise me if I so much as looked at Gloria." "Once a boxer, he looks a real gent and wears a monocle, very Brigade of Guards, waistcoated, suit, George boots, a toff." "Rob the Hermitage, join this gaggle of duckeggs enacting a crazy Priscilla-of-the-Lower-Third dream?" "A crocodile of passengers," "I wittered, a perfect prat," "a mingy three pieces of toast ... a manky plate of toast," "I said, gormless," "scarpering through undergrowth...." How can you not like a book abounding with such charms?

The book has even more pleasures, chief among them antiques and art forgery. Lovejoy is a "divvy," someone who can divine true antiques by nearly fainting when he's in their presence. He's used this talent for a career just sort of definitely almost barely (his words) this side of the law. He is drawn against his will into a mysterious caper involving the Hermitage and a shipful of antique enthusiasts, almost none of whom can recognize a real antique from a fake. The mystery never completely resolves, a flaw that can be overlooked since it's secondary to the local color in the book. Occasional forays into the history of amber, pottery, wicker chairs and other antiques are a lot of fun, and Lovejoy is quite a storyteller. Is it true that Elvis once entered an Elvis impersonator contest and lost?

Rating:
Summary: Lovejoy at his delightfully cocky witty best
Review: Lovejoy hides in plain sight accepting a low paying job that he could define in his ten word descriptions as: hard, stinky with no financial or otherwise satisfaction, but safe. However, as is the norm with Lovejoy a woman intercedes so that the word safe changes to shanghaied. The female and the antiques expert finds himself imprisoned in a mollycoddled way on the cruise ship Melissa heading to Russia with a boat load of antique lovers and experts, and a few passengers with criminal intent needing Lovejoy's talent.

The plan is simple. Lovejoy will visit Leningrad's Hermitage Museum to allegedly abscond with a master or two. However, as he is pampered from Amsterdam to Oslo, and finally Leningrad, he learns the true caper. Lovejoy is to steal the renowned wall panels of the Amber Room, a feat ranking with those of Hercules.

As usual with a Lovejoy tale, the plot is all over the place in a frantic, often amusing, but always meandering manner even when someone lectures on seemingly dry topics. The key to this novel and any Lovejoy story is the antihero whose two vices are women and antiques with no compunction on how he scores with either. THE TEN WORD GAME is Lovejoy at his delightfully cocky witty best in a tale that ambles across Europe.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Lovejoy at his delightfully cocky witty best
Review: Lovejoy hides in plain sight accepting a low paying job that he could define in his ten word descriptions as: hard, stinky with no financial or otherwise satisfaction, but safe. However, as is the norm with Lovejoy a woman intercedes so that the word safe changes to shanghaied. The female and the antiques expert finds himself imprisoned in a mollycoddled way on the cruise ship Melissa heading to Russia with a boat load of antique lovers and experts, and a few passengers with criminal intent needing Lovejoy's talent.

The plan is simple. Lovejoy will visit Leningrad's Hermitage Museum to allegedly abscond with a master or two. However, as he is pampered from Amsterdam to Oslo, and finally Leningrad, he learns the true caper. Lovejoy is to steal the renowned wall panels of the Amber Room, a feat ranking with those of Hercules.

As usual with a Lovejoy tale, the plot is all over the place in a frantic, often amusing, but always meandering manner even when someone lectures on seemingly dry topics. The key to this novel and any Lovejoy story is the antihero whose two vices are women and antiques with no compunction on how he scores with either. THE TEN WORD GAME is Lovejoy at his delightfully cocky witty best in a tale that ambles across Europe.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Voyage to nowhere
Review: Using Lovejoy's ten word system to describe Gash's Lovejoy series:

Early books great, later ones are mixed, this one stinks.

Story goes nowhere. It is filled with muddled characters and repetitious comments on amber and other antiques. Finally grinds to an incomprehensible end. I couldn't wait to get off the boat.