Lovejoy's back (Every Last Cent - Jonathan Gash)

Member Name: pje

Product:	Every Last Cent - Jonathan Gash
Date:	30/09/01 (148 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Full of smiles :o)

Disadvantages: Full of rogues ;o)

"Antiques is an army of scroungers hunting for dross.
In short, antiques is chaos in search of a wardrobe."

Wotcher! Lovejoy is back, for his twenty-second adventure...

Lovejoy, for those that don't know, is a 'divvy' - he feels funny
when in the presence of real antiques. The loveable rogue also
produces a few antiques himself. ;-) He slinks around East Anglia like a grown-up Tom Sawyer, scrounging and manipulating to get by, with trouble hot on his tail.

Lovejoy moves in a world of shady deals and moody objet d-art,
where everyone is trying to wangle something, and they all seem to need his help, willing or not. But then you've probably seen
the TV version, so you know the score.

He's also a ladykiller. It turns out that Lovejoy has "made smiles"
with almost every female character we meet. (The 'almost' in that
last sentence might have been superfluous!) Sometimes he can
also be gloriously sexist: "If birds were kind now and then,
maybe I'd respond. As it was, I'd things to do."

Jonathan Gash has a wonderful way with words.
The book is riddled with bons mots and slang expressions.
For example, the "tom trade" which doesn't mean what you think
it means, no, apparently it's the jewellery business (tomfoolery =
jewellery, rhyming slang y'see.) A 'rounder' is a phoney antique,
shoplifters are 'stickers' or 'shoulders' and characters are known
only by nicknames often distilled from their patter.

So what's the deal? Well...

Lovejoy is in trouble with local antique dealers because Mortimer
(believed to be his son) has inherited a talent for divvying and
is using it honestly. Yes, HONESTLY! He is helping tourists discern
genuine antiques from fakes and forgeries, which is bad for their
business! Ther
e's also a rich bird requiring the services of a divvy, and another who wants him to look after a rare painting for her.
Funny thing is, the painter never existed - it's one of Lovejoy's...


I can see why Jonathan Gash's Lovejoy novels are so popular
this is an engaging pleasant funny read full of nonchalant charm.
I also learned a bit about the history of Lloyd's of London,
how to get chewing gum out of someone's hair with chocolate,
and how to make a few bob forging a Lowry. ;-)
But then, as Lovejoy puts it: "Antiques make crooks of us all."

And then there's the match trick, whereby you put two forgeries
together and Joe Public assumes that the better one is real.
I thought I might try it out on dooyoo, posting two ops together - one would be a genuine antique opinion, the other a pje original.
Nah. You'd never fall for it ...would you?

¶ pp416 ¶ ISBN: 0333905296 ¶
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