Erasmus was wandering through his local emporium librorum a while back and happened across Swing by Rupert Holmes. "Rupert Holmes?" thought Erasmus, That Rupert Holmes?" Indeed, yes, that Rupert Holmes, the jacket informed him. Aside from writing one of the true Zeitgeist (animus temporis?) hits of the '70s (the lyrics to which are much cleverer than Erasmus remembered), Mr. Holmes' subsequent career has been quite distinguished, a fact of which Erasmus was unaware. Not only did he clean up with Edgars and Tonys for his musical Mystery of Edwin Drood, but he picked up an Edgar for his previous novel (now being made into a movie), and was the genius behind the extremely droll Remember WENN.
Much as it shocked Erasmus, the guy who wrote "The Piña Colada Song" appears to be something of a Renaissance man and artistic polymath. Still, Erasmus had his doubts and bought swing mostly because he's a sucker for the era and big-band swing music. (The enclosed CD, he thought, was a cute gimmick.)
Beginning the book with low expectations (though the lack of celebrity hype on it should have tipped him off that it wasn't a typical ghost-written job), Erasmus was pleasantly surprised at the writing and the set up (a dramatic murder at the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1940). Erasmus still thought that it would be a fun little confection to parallel David Gelernter's classic 1939: The Lost World of the Fair (Ignore the Amazon review's snark about Gelernter's politics.)
Reading on, Erasmus was constantly surprised by the depth of the characterization, the acuteness of the psychology, and the masterful expansion of the plot. Holmes is a master of the historical novel: his command of detail as well as mindset are as good as anything Erasmus has read in a long time. He combines this talent with very skillful plotting and profound humanity. To choose one example of the former, there's a very, very clever cryptological puzzle near the heart of the mystery. Unlike less talented writers, Holmes doesn't make its deciphering the climax of the book. It's a critical plot point, but it's subordinated to the characters' stories. Swing is a truly great mystery that deserves as wide a readership as possible.
Ave!
(Alas, Erasmus has failed to listen to the CD yet. He apologizes to his four readers.)
