London Bridges

From Library Journal In this fun first novel from a Scottish writer, an elderly Greek, Mr. Eugenides, lives alone in a big old house in London that is crammed with rare manuscripts, books, and other treasures. He may be the only link left to the valuable real estate of a Greek church destroyed during the London blitz. This sweet little old man becomes the focal point of a colorful group of characters: a slimy lawyer, two mysterious Greek swindlers, a dashing gay professor of Greek antiquities along with his Australian student and her Indian lover, and a perky crusader for green spaces. When Eugenides winds up dead under suspicious circumstances, events spin out of control, and the tale ends with a wild motorcycle chase through Gloucestershire that involves Alice the Lurcher, a Druid, and an explosion of teddy bears. Even though this reviewer laughed out loud, this is a literate, well-plotted thriller, part mystery, part social commentary, and very well written, with a crisp and involving narration by Christopher Kay. Stevenson's style is heavily influenced by Dorothy Sayers and Evelyn Waugh; highly recommended for all public libraries. Barbara Perkins, Irving Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. London BridgesBy Jane StevensonClipper AudioCopyright © 2001Jane StevensonAll right reserved.ISBN: 9781841972268Excerpt ILondon is a town for fog, mist swirling up from the river, the darkness between streetlights. But, although it is never summer in the London of the imagination, the streets are as answerable to sunlight and long evenings as those of any capital in Europe. There are hot, still, August nights in Mayfair, and on such a night, Jeanene Malone had just found out about the Greek optative.On such nights, while visitors ebb and flow in vast human tides through London"s centres of shopping, culture and entertainment, in Mayfair, though it lies between the sun-baked yet inviting grass of Hyde Park and the manifold entertainments of the West End, secret, flower-adorned mansions of stock-brick and stucco maintain a patrician silence; unguessed, unseen lives move in secret channels beneath the surface, and the streets are as deserted as the mountains of the moon.As the Greek couple turned out of Park Lane and looked down the hot and dusty length of Mount Street, they saw nothing moving at all except a feral cat, white paws twinkling jauntily in the grey evening light as it slipped at its leisure from beneath a BMW to a new lookout-point behind the front wheel of a Jaguar. The woman"s sharp heels set up flat, clacking echoes in the silent street. About halfway down, the Queen Anne Dutch frontages were briefly punctuated by a squashed-looking parade of shops built into the ground floor of nos. 40–48. The third shop remained lit, a little yellow beacon in the blue summer night."There it is," murmured the woman. As they approached, they saw that the windows were bright with images of tanned and exquisite women, while the shopsign, running the length of the frontage, showed a mortar and pestle, and the words "Mount Street Chemist"s". As they approached the shop, they found they were able to peer over the top of the window display into the lighted depths of the pharmacy. Within, a girl sat alone, resting her elbows on the counter, hands pushed into her dark, curly hair, studying an open book with great concentration. Her plain white blouse was obviously inexpensive, and she looked very young and small. The woman smiled to herself without humour. A student, she suspected, studying for exams. Ideal: with her mind full of her own problems, she would hardly notice that they had come in.Taking a last look along the deserted street, the man stiffened, and touched his companion"s hand warningly. A man had emerged from the side door of the Riyadh Gallery, and was rapidly approaching. The woman slipped her arm through the man"s, and they turned away unhurriedly.