The Dazzle of the Light: An Evening Standard 'Best New Book for 2022'

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A SPARKLING NEW HISTORICAL NOVEL INSPIRED BY LONDON'S NOTORIOUS, ALL-FEMALE CRIME SYNDICATE KNOWN AS 'THE FORTY THIEVES'. My main complaint is how long it took to get going, it could’ve been much shorter — there’s only so many times I want to read about people stealing gloves. Stakes were very low until the end, so it was a little tough to keep interest initially. Please also be aware there are multiple instances of SA, although it’s 1920 and probably accurate, it can be tiring to read about women having little to no choice in their sexual encounters quite so often. Harriet wonderfully compliments Ruby, on her desire to be a serious journalist/"career woman" whilst engaged to a Tory MP (*sad times) and balancing the role of a "good girl from a good family". Now the “perpetual journey” that Whitman has taken us on through this poem—a journey that has extended to the vastest regions of the cosmos, from the origins of the universe billions of years ago to billions of years hence, a journey of a dynamic shifting life force that can never be measured—suddenly shrinks again to the seemingly smaller yet equally mysterious journeys of the poet and the reader. Once again embracing the “you” who reads the poem, the “I” leads us to a “knoll,” where we gain a perspective above all the knowledge that libraries hold, above religions and philosophies, and the poet points us to “the public road” that we each must travel for ourselves. This is Whitman’s “open road,” the journey with no end, the journey that exceeds all the maps and guides of past knowledge and faith, the journey we always make “publicly,” as an organic part of the world around us (given all that Whitman has demonstrated about our shared atoms, how could the journey ever really be private?). Whitman’s imagery makes the journey feel familiar and even routine: it’s a road we’ve been on before, maybe our whole lives; it is right there “within reach”; and we will travel it both alone and with the poet, who offers us support even as he begins now to release us from his tutelage.

The social commentary of women's liberation, the fight for independence, class wars, and morality, made me realise in 2022 we haven't progressed that far! What a fabulous read. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Ruby and Harriet. Two very different women who’s lives cross a number of times until they almost become friends. She gets her chance when she witnesses a robbery, and goes on to publisher her piece about it, with a rather good drawing of one of the perpetrators – Ruby Mills. It made for an exciting read, with vibrant characters. I enjoyed the short chapters and fast pace which made it very difficult to put down. Ruby is ruthlessly ambitious, strikingly beautiful - and one of the Forty Thieves' most talented members.

Ruby is feisty, hard as nails and uber glamorous. Harriet is demure, beautiful but has a streak of obstinacy that I loved, a need to do and be something in the period immediately post The Great War, when most women still did not have the vote and were expected to marry, have babies and simper. Confess this is one of the reasons i drive a higher vehicle when not at work, the difference in sitting that two or three feet higher is amazing. The plot was simple enough to follow and I really liked how it got more and more complex as the two stories got more and more mixed together. It was so compelling to follow and see how it all panned out for the two women who were the beating heart of this book. The ending annoyed me ever so slightly but that was just because I had wanted it to go in another direction. As I mentioned before and will mention again, the historical aspect of this book and how grounded it was in the historical time period and the focus on the lives of these characters as well.

A bit later in the story we meet Harriet. She comes from a prestigious family and is about to be married to a politician who aspires to become the next Prime Minister. She has aspirations in journalism however and seeks some excitement in her boring domestic life with her parents!This is vaguely like Peaky Blinders crossed with Oliver & Killing Eve (vibes only, it’s not nearly as violent or dramatic) — but you’ve got a 1920 setting, corruption, a group of career thieves, a women who is part of that group, and someone investigating her who gets a little too fascinated — you get the idea. Lists, twice, naughty, not nice. But before I get to my selection of the best crime fiction I read this year (gentle reminder that far too much is published annually for two Declans to be comprehensive, let alone one) I want to note a few seasonal treats in prospect. Whitman’s offer in this section to “wash the gum” from our eyes, to habituate us “to the dazzle of the light” shining through every moment of existence, comes with a catch: we must be bold enough to venture into the unknown, to meet the world stripped of our preconceptions and illusions, to measure the vast within and without; if we have the courage to take to the open road, alert to possibilities heretofore unimagined, mindful of the routines that blind us to what is there, our walk in the sun may lead to a deeper knowledge of the cosmos. “If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is: infinite,” William Blake wrote in “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” a signal event in the evolution of modern poetry. “For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.” Whitman proposes that we take this lesson to heart, applying to the whole of life the essence of creativity—which is to leave the cavern and see what has been right in front of us all along.

This was a gem of a novel that told the stories of two independently minded young women negotiating a changing society still struggling to come to terms with the devastation of the Great War. The main protagonists are Ruby Mills, a member of the forties shoplifting gang, and Harriet Littlemore, privileged daughter of a politician who wants more out of life and is working on a local paper as a lady journalist. The two women lead very different lives but their paths cross one day. Harriet is fascinated by Ruby and determines to find out more about her and the life that she leads. It's 1920, and London isn't yet in the roaring twenties, but rather very much still recovering from the First World War. Ruby is a thief, a member of the Forty Thieves gang of women based in Southwark, a woman determined to make her way to the top. Harriet is the daughter of a wealthy politician, engaged to a rising star in the same world, and working as the women's writer on the local paper. Their paths cross, and both their destinies are changed as a result. Harriet Littlemore is an aspiring journalist from a 'good' family, engaged to a rising star of the Tory party - but she wants a successful career of her own.The other orphaned when she was young and taken in by a jeweller. She is now one of the most talented members of ‘The Forty Thieves’, a well known organisation of thieves. She has no morals and will steal anything from anyone, with the ambition to one day become Queen of the Forties. This book single handedly has helped me through my poorly period this week and I absolutely adored it. 6/5 if it were possible.

In the hills around the village where I grew up were abandoned mica mines, which once supplied Muscovy glass for windows and horse-drawn carriages; the entrances were boarded up, but outside in the slag were sheets of the mineral, which peeled apart in yellowish leaves. These I would hold over my eyes, casting the earth, trees, and sky in a sepia light, which intrigued me. The world would take on the tint of the photographs in our books about the Civil War, blurring for a moment the distinction between my experience and that of the soldiers whose sacrifice laid the groundwork for a new conception of America, in line with what Whitman invoked in “Song of Myself.” Years passed before this exercise in the woods raised questions in my mind about the nature of truth (what is real? what imagined?), which I could not answer; this unknowingness I came eventually to associate with the promise of the open road.

When Harriet and Ruby cross paths, their lives change. Harriet becomes obsessed with Ruby and the life that she leads, and this interest causes big trouble for Ruby. Finding herself ostracised from the other women, she goes it alone, getting involved with corrupt nightclub owners and risking everything for the glitter of bigger and better diamonds. I will mention only in passing that the "light overload" situation is made worse by the increasingly common and illegal use of foglights.