Rating: 
Summary: But let that bide...
Review: I never thought that could be a catch phrase, but the protagionist of this story sure tried!
This book was loads of fun. I can't recommend it enough. I didn't know that there was a series of Abel Jones books, and that didn't matter in terms of missing anything in character development.
This book had an interesting story but that wasn't the main appeal. Abel Jones was just engrossing. You see a deeply religious man and you are fooled just as the characters who interact with him are fooled by his funny looks, short stature, and bad leg. Jones is a huge prude who eschews reading novels, but later takes a guilty pleasure in reading a little Dickens. Now that's funny! Abel Jones, however, like interesting people, runs very deep and there's more to him than meets your eye or ear. Parry increases your knowledge in small measures as time goes on. In fact, learning more about Jones more interesting than the twists and turns of the plot.
If you get the audio book version on CD, the narrator does an outstanding job bringing Scottish, New England, and Cockney accents to life. The narrator did the best job of any of the 20+ audio books I've read so far with his very moving performance. I can't wait to track down another one of these books!
Rating:
Summary: Parry's Best Yet
Review: I should have spent the last day studying for the bar exam.Unfortunately, Parry's sharp wit, along with his unsurpassed development of plot, setting and characterization dragged me away from my scholastic duties. Now I know why Abel Jones stands so quick to damn the novel as an enticing distraction from virtue (though the Welshman softens this postion somewhat in the course of this story). I found this story to be the best mystery of Parry's books, too. Though Parry's previous books were similarly entertaining, I found "Faded Coat of Blue" and "Call Each River" predictable of outcome (though having an early notion of the route made the trip no less enjoyable). As with "Shadows of Glory", I found "Honor's Kingdom" confounding until the final pages. And the villain who assumes center-stage in this novel stands up to any of the fictional rogues concocted by the Marquise de Sade as a convincing, repulsive embodiment of villainy. Though I suspect Parry's sympathies would not lie with that French "nobleman", his ability to portray such a wicked character with such sympathy ("Sympathy for the Devil", perhaps?) testifies to his skill as an author and to his integrity as an observer of the human condition. Well worth the read, and then some.
Rating: 
Summary: Where's Molloy?
Review: If for nothing else, read HONOR'S KINGDOM to observe a master of dialect in action. In this fourth book in the series, the wonderful supporting cast is missing. Abel Jones travels to London alone to deal with the murders of Union agents who have been trying to prevent the building of a Confederate warship. In the process we are introduced to a cockney dance-hall girl, and when Abel travels to Glascow, a Scottish police inspector, whose accents are dead on. And noticeably different. These accents don't distract from the story at all. They make the characters come alive.
Another good point is Parry's deft use of historical figures, in this instance, Charles Francis Adams, ambassador to England, and Benjamin Disraeli.
Once again Parry's humor is wonderful. Jones says at one point, "The price of beefstake would have bought a cow back in America. And wanton expenditure is sinful . . . ." Parry perfectly captures Jones's penurious nature.
One new aspect is the introduction of Abel Jones's Moriarity, the Earl of Thretford, who is helping the Confederates christen their ship.
The problem I had with the book was the long involved plot.
Jones is constantly wandering down blind alleys and always seems to end up in the worst part of town. One would suspect this is a social commentary rather than a historical novel. There are so many characters and so many diplomatic imbroglios it's hard to tell who did what even at the end of the book.
Jimmy Molloy would have been a great confidant if Parry had been able to think of a reason to have Jones bring him along.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful, haunting writing
Review: Life is mystifying. One person can read a novel and adore it, while another "can't get through" the same book. Well, I had to write this review--my first on amazon--because I saw that a reviewer not only didn't much like this book, but suspected that Owen Parry's audience is mostly male. As a matter of fact, I'm both very much a woman and a devoted fan of this series. I don't think one's reaction is so much a matter of gender as much as of personal literary tastes. If Parry faces any stumbling block, it just may be that his writing is too good--the more you love fine, serious writing (masquerading as a mystery series, and a very good one, at that), the better you will like Parry's writing. But if you prefer novels that are as mindless as prime-time television, look elsewhere. Parry is a master of beautiful prose, a true genius at creating vivid, living, memorable characters, devilishly-good at plots, and, as best I can tell, a first-rate historian (note to my fellow female reviewer: Marx was well-known in informed circles by the 1860s and a good number of Communists, as well as thousands of Socialists, fought in the Civil War on the Union side). Anyway, the important thing is that this is a delightful book that I read in two sittings. All of the novels in this series are great reads--and Parry, to his credit, has made each of them unique and he avoids cheap formulas. Yes, these books are terrific mysteries and--just maybe--the finest historical novels being written today. But the ultimate matter is that they are simply wonderful books. This is genuine literature pretending to be popular fiction. And I intend to read every novel Owen Parry publishes...
Rating:
Summary: Sirens' Song
Review: Now I know how Odysseus felt lashed to the mast and drawn toward the rocks by the irresistable Sirens' song. The song, in my case, was "Honor's Kindgom" by Owen Parry, and the rocks were the jagged edges of sleep deprivation. For two nights running I could not put down this book. If you've ever been seduced by a book, you will know what I mean. It is an unforgetable experience.
From the very first page the reader realizes he is in the hands of a master story teller who bestows endless gifts. The first of these is the magical art of story telling itself. We each carry ancient patterns of our ancestors in us, and Parry's mixture of Teuton and Celt conjurs up both Gothic darkness and Elfin sorcery. I see in his writing the reflection of a Romano-Celtic bard, singing of Arthur and Merlin, Lancelot and Guinevere, Modred and Morgan in some smoky great hall, harp in hand, with the rapt attention of chieftains and warriors as the song of dark glory rose to the rafters and his fingers danced across the strings. And for those wondrous moments, magic would hang in the air.
A second gift is the perfect recreation of a lost time and place, Victoria's Britain of 1862. It is a deft portrait of a vibrant age, the stage upon which Parry spins his tale. Brilliant technological advances and improvements are shadowed by equally powerful miseries as British society strides and struggles into a new age. You are there, traveling down elegant Oxford Street in London drinking in a rainbow of imperial wealth and power one moment and in another you are stepping over piles of filth in the Dials, the worst of the city's slums. All the while there is the comparison of a powerful but class-ridden Britain against America as the hope of the future.
A third gift is Parry's talent for drawing characters - from the sinister, Cobra-like Benjamin Disraeli, all manners and lethal indirection, to the directness of a fish market worker with rotting face and breath. His pen brings to life Charles Francis Adams and his son, Henry Adams, and Lord Palmerston, as well as Trollope and the odious Karl Marx.
Parry's fourth gift is the commentary on the nature of man and his salvation. The friction of faith and reality is a constant backdrop agains which the hero measures his world.
His fifth gift is prose so beautiful that I found myself rereading passages to savor every nuance, afraid that I had missed some delight. Mary Renault was like that too. The reader who skims tosses gold away. This is fine literature hiding modestly behind the label of historical fiction and is a delight beyond measure to those who adore the English language. He does not stint the humor either, its flavor subtle and piquant.
Parry's sixth gift is the crafting of a mystery as daunting as the Gordian Knot. Luckily the reader is not allowed Alexander's shortcut and must slowly follow the incricate coils that double back again and again upon themselves. This is a first rate mystery.
Parry's seventh gift is the alchemy that welds and transforms all the other gifts into a single seamless and breath-taking experience. Never more was the whole greater than the sum of the parts even when the parts are diamonds.
Rating:
Summary: The Best So Far
Review: Owen Parry does for London what he does for Washington, DC, he presents the sights and smells and the grim reality of the slums giving the reader a sense of what it must have been like. The main character, Able Jones, becomes more interesting as we learn more about him and his past. The author has fun by showing thumbnail sketches of historical figures like Karl Marx and Disraeli. We know what will happen to them in the future, but the characters in the novel do not, sort of like the audience in Greek theatre. The mystery is complex as various groups try to advance their causes. And nobody is quite what they appear to be at beginning. I am eager to read the next book in the series.
Rating:
Summary: The Best So Far
Review: Owen Parry does for London what he does for Washington, DC, he presents the sights and smells and the grim reality of the slums giving the reader a sense of what it must have been like. The main character, Able Jones, becomes more interesting as we learn more about him and his past. The author has fun by showing thumbnail sketches of historical figures like Karl Marx and Disraeli. We know what will happen to them in the future, but the characters in the novel do not, sort of like the audience in Greek theatre. The mystery is complex as various groups try to advance their causes. And nobody is quite what they appear to be at beginning. I am eager to read the next book in the series.
Rating:
Summary: The Master Scores Again
Review: Owen Parry has created a new Civil genre: books which are both historically accurate and fine writing.
He always tells us something new, in this case the behind-the-scenes manuevering which kept the Union from fighting Great Britain and the Confederacy at the same time. There is almost always something cheerfully grotesque, such the first murder victim (there are several) being eaten by eels. Sex, violence and intrigue, all displayed in the most understated way, in keeping with his strict Methodist hero-detective. I think they are wonderful books, and look forward to many more in the same series.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful Prose Can't Save a Poorly-Plotted Story
Review: Owen Parry is a great writer, let me say that out front. He created a truly memorable character and has a rare gift for language. Unfortunately, those qualities don't always make for a good novel; that's certainly the case here. It's frustrating that Parry places his hero in a bizarre, over-complicated plot when the Civil War provides such rich ground to draw from. The opening chapter is excellent; wryly grotesque and involving, but things collapse after that. Too many plot threads, too many contrived situations, too little connection to history. The low point for this series so far.
Rating:
Summary: The Series gets better and better
Review: Owen Parry is on the verge of national treasure status, and he's only written four books. He writes detective novels, but of a new genre: historical novels that meld the traditional characteristics of a private eye narrative with the background of the American Civil War. There are several of these series, but this one is pretty unique: the main character/narrator is a Welsh transplant who's a veteran of Queen Victoria's army and its wars in India. Abel Jones was a sergeant in the British army, but finally quit and swore never to kill again. He married his childhood sweetheart, and immigrated to America, where he stepped right into the start of the Civil War. A deeply religious man, he's an ardent abolitionist (as many religious people were) and so he joined the U.S. Volunteers, recieving the rank of Major in recognition of his ability to discipline and train recruits. He was, however, wounded at the First Battle of Bull Run, and though he can walk he'll never run again, so he can't return to service in the field. Instead, he's an investigator for the army, looking into various things that defy definition, and trying to learn the skill of investigation on the fly. In this, the fourth entry in the series, Jones is sent to England to assist the U.S. Ambassador. The ambassador has a difficult assignment for him: the Confederates have a warship under construction in Liverpool, and if it's allowed to reach the sea it could ravage the American merchant marine and cause untold damage. The British are claiming not to know the purpose of the ship, and when Jones arrives in Britain, the first thing that greets him is the death of another American agent who was working on the same project, trying to keep the Confederate ship out of the water. He's been murdered and stuffed in a basket of eels, and two of his colleagues have been killed also. Jones didn't even bring his revolver: his prospects of survival don't look good. But Abel Jones is a dangerous man when his blood is up. He's not much of a detective (though he's getting better, and seems to be able to follow a simple clue doggedly) but he's stubborn and hard to kill, and an interesting guide to the nineteenth century world, in this case England and Scotland. Since he's a Methodist from a century and a half ago, he has strange (by modern standards, anyway) morals, such as an aversion to stage plays (though he's read Shakespeare) and novels...for a while anyway. Parry puts various historical cameos into the story, from Trollope to Whistler to Disraeli, and knits the whole thing together really well. I enjoyed this book a great deal, and I would recommend it a great deal. As I've said before, this is the best series of historical novels, bar none, since George MacDonald Fraser started the Flashman series.
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