Item: Shrines of Gaiety
Rating: 4.5
Author: Catherine

Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson
Published by Doubleday
Publication date: September 27, 2022
Genres: Fiction, Historical, Mystery

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I’m happy to start the week with a novel, Shrines of Gaiety, that left me thoroughly entertained. Nellie Coker is an iron-fisted matriarch running nightclubs in 1920s London and trying to groom at least some of her children to take over. After a short stint in prison, she returns home to find the vultures circling in the form of the police trying to shut her down and other gangsters wanting to take over her empire. At the same time, there is a killer on the loose who seems to be targeting the young girls who work at clubs.

The end of WWI found much of London looking to decompress and have fun and no one seemed to understand this better than Nellie with her handful of nightclubs scattered throughout the city’s Soho district. Each catered to a different clientele, ensuring that everyone from shopgirls to members of Parliament had a place to go after hours. While in prison, only her daughter Edith had shown herself to be interested in and capable of running the business. Now that she’s out, Nellie realizes she needs to think about not just a plan of succession, but the future for her other five children who, although grown, show little interest in independent living. In addition, an old foe has resurfaced and the increased attention from the police due to the murders has everyone on edge.

The clubs themselves are the set pieces in Shrines of Gaiety, each with a unique personality that mirrors the events played out within their smoky rooms. Their fixed nature is needed as the novel has an expansive cast, making the early chapters a bit unwieldy in trying to remember who’s who. Atkinson is so adept at storytelling that I strongly advise riding it out. Soon enough Freda, Frobischer, Niven, Gwen, Edith and the rest of the Coker clan and all those orbiting around them will feel familiar as the strands of their stories intertwine and their paths intersect without confusion.

Shrines of Gaiety is a great story expertly told. A feat that authors like Atkinson make look easy, when it is anything but. She blends dry British wit into the grim realities of murder, corruption, and danger, in a way that makes the pages fly by. All of the characters play their part perfectly, not just on the surface, but internally as well with back stories, motivations, and distinct personalities. Whether it’s a librarian who ends up managing a nightclub while working as an informant, a young woman of more determination than talent who finds herself at the bottom of the food chain, or a morose inspector obsessed with bringing Nellie down all come together to build the kind of world a reader can sink into. This is my favorite kind of historical fiction.