The Black Hand

The Black Hand (2008) Will Thomas

Barker is called down to the docks, where a barrel containing a dead Italian had been pulled from the river. This single body draws Barker and Llewelyn into a case involving an attempt by the Sicilian mafia to start in London–something Barker, Scotland Yard, and the Home Office want desperately not to happen.

As usual, the book begins with Llewelyn in danger–this time in a knife fight in the dark. I think I’ve come to actually like this introduction. You know Llewelyn isn’t going to die in the story–since he’s narrating the story–and it draws you in as you wonder who he will move from a dead body on the docks to a knife fight in an estate conservatory.

We continue to see Llewelyn mature, and although he’s still saucy, he’s no longer making the stupid mistakes he did in earlier books (which is a nice change). Although Barker is as secretive as ever, we see him slowly letting Llewelyn see more pieces of his life. This time we get a glance at his seafaring past, and also (finally) we meet The Widow, who has piqued Llewelyn’s interest from the start.

I actually quite liked The Widow. She’s everything you’d expect of a man like Baker, which is good. Though feisty Victorian/Regency women always make me a bit nervous, since if they had existed in reality in the numbers they exist in literature, the world would be a far different place than it is.

The mystery was interesting, and although I caught one part of it immediately, I thought perhaps the second big reveal was perhaps a bit far fetched. But it wasn’t bad, and it kept my attention.

If you have not read a previous book in the Barker & Llewelyn series, you should be able to read The Black Hand without any difficulty. However, one of the better parts of the book was realizing how Llewelyn has matured over the course of the series, so you’ll be missing out on that, though his past is alluded to. (Which in theory might ruin the first book for you, if you were interested in going back and starting there.)
Rating: 7/10

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