64. The Frog in the Moonflower by Ivor Drummond

it is a cool cover, no?

Despite having once again a full on-deck shelf, I couldn't resist buying this book when I found it in a dollar stand outside of the used bookstore that recently moved from downtown into my neighbourhood. I want to support the guy, the cover looked really cool and it is a subject I am quite interested in, animal rights revenge.  As you can see from the byline "A last croak for the sport of spilling blood" and the opaque title, it's kind of hard to figure out what this book is about.  The blurb on the back emphasizes how it is the third in a series with a "famous team" (whose members are referenced in the blurb).  To the contemporary reader who has never heard of Ivor Drummond, nor the characters of Lady Jenny, Sandro and Colly, it all feels very referential and insider, and off-putting.  But I was intrigued nonetheless.

I should have listened to my inner skepticism.  There are some really good moments, but overall it was very unsatisfying.  This book suffers from an awkward structure and an assumed familiarity with the "famous team" that really isn't all that interesting.  They are very upper class and seem to have a ton of different skills.  It is in the action moments when they use these skills, particularly in an exciting car grabbing scene and another B&E, that the book is very enjoyable.  But the rest of it is kind of a mess, wallowing in annoying upper-class self-satisfaction with no intrigue and a muddy sense of who is bad.  So not great.  Too bad, as I thought I had found a nice little discovery there.  Turns out Drummond is a pseudonym for Roger Longrigg, a prolific and successful British author who wrote under many different names.