RELENTLESS MELT by Jeremy P. Bushnell

RELENTLESS MELT

Jeremy P. Bushnell (jeremypbushnell.com)

Melville House Books (mhpbooks.com)

£16.99

Buy a copy from your favourite independent bookshop

Artie Quick is a 17-year-old Bostonian who wants to know everything there is to know about crime. By day, Artie is a shopgirl in Filene’s department store; by night, she dresses in men’s clothes so she can attend a course on Criminal Investigation. Eager to put what she’s learning into practice, she goes off in search of something to investigate, her friend Theodore Reed at her side. She hears a rumour of a prolonged scream heard on the Common several nights earlier. Her investigations lead her to a Portuguese sailor who has lost a tooth, and a tree that has suddenly grown to twice the height of its contemporaries. When they witnesses an attempted abduction Artie and Theodore find themselves in the middle of a conspiracy that reaches to the corridors of City Hall, and which seems to centre on a partially-built railway tunnel where all work seems to have, inexplicably, stopped.

Before we go much further, it’s probably a good time to warn you what to expect in Jeremy P. Bushnell’s new novel. Relentless Melt is very much a book of two halves: it starts off as a mystery novel and, in its own way, it’s a very satisfying mystery with a solution that ties everything neatly together. But somewhere along the way, it jumps genre boundaries and Bushnell introduces magic and the supernatural into the mix. Which is right up my alley, but it’s not for everyone. So, if you decide to give this one a shot, keep an open mind and remember that it WILL go in directions that your average historical crime novel is unlikely to even consider.

Relentless Melt takes us back to Boston at the dawn of the 20th Century and introduces us to Artie Quick and Theodore Reed. Artie is determined not to let her sex hold her back, wearing her hair short and dressing as a man in order to attend a class at the YMCA’s Evening Institute for Young Men. As the novel progresses it becomes less clear if this is little more than an affectation, or the early stages of something more. Artie spends a lot of time out of the home she shares with her parents, who have grown more distant (through alcoholism and illness) following the sudden disappearance of their son from the family home, and from their lives. Theodore, an upper-crust bachelor a few years older than Artie, is something of a collector: he collects odd characters, spending time with them so he can learn something about them and their hobbies or obsessions. Artie is one such character who has befriended the older man, who is happy to accompany her on her wild flights of fancy.

It’s an odd pairing that works very well and is helped by the lack of sexual tension between the leads. Bushnell injects the story with a wonderful sense of humour which makes the novel feel somewhat lighthearted in the early sections. But things quickly turn sinister when the leading pair witness the attempted abduction of a young woman outside a bar late one night. From here, the author succeeds in perfectly balancing light and dark so that the story is tense throughout, but never noirish or nihilistic. As I’ve already mentioned, it asks a lot of the reader in terms of suspension of disbelief, especially those who have come onboard expecting a straight crime novel. Magic plays a big part in the latter half of the novel, and it’s interesting to see how the author – and the inquisitive mind of Artie – handles the balance of science, magic and the supernatural in arriving at a satisfactory solution.

With Relentless Melt Jeremy P. Bushnell proves that he is a writer to be reckoned with. A solid mystery with a satisfying – if somewhat off-the-wall – solution built around a memorable and engaging pair of central characters, it first lures us into a false sense of security with its lighthearted opening before taking us to places we never would have expected. This is a story that takes time to get to know you, then grabs you by the throat and takes you for a dark and exciting ride. It’s a beautifully written novel, and I’m sure I won’t be the only reader hoping that Ms Quick and Mr Reed get a few return engagements; they could certainly give Holmes and Watson or Langdon St. Ives a run for their money. And if that’s not enough to make you want to read Relentless Melt, then I don’t know what is!