James McCreet is something of a success for the Macmillan New Writing imprint – his debut novel, The Incendiary’s Trail, was released under MNW in hardcover in July 2009, and in January 2010 arrived as a paperback via the main Pan Macmillan banner.

In 1840-something (the year is never specified), the newly formed Detective Force must employ an unusual, even controversial, tactic to stop a murdering firestarter blazing a trail of death and destruction across London. To catch their man, they resort to employing another criminal as an informant and unofficial agent, much to the horror of the police commissioner, who fears a scandal should the news reach the general public. But the risk pays off, as our detective heroes and their unusual accomplice race towards the fiery climax.

The Incendiary’s Trail’s strength lies in McCreet’s vivid description of the seedy, putrid underbelly of early Victorian London. He’s clearly done his research, and while we track the story from beginning to end, we get various “excursions” and observations on the London underworld thanks to the book’s narrator, a newspaper journalist who is covering the amazing case of the incendiary. At time the detail is a little too thick, only there to show exactly how much research the author did, but it is written in a wonderfully Victorian style and is a delight to read, and the occasional use of archaic spellings throughout the text helps to set the scene. For this alone I’d recommend the book to anyone with an interest in 19th century life – I’m a fan of the Victorians myself, and even I learnt a thing or two!

The story itself is quite interesting, although the incendiary himself comes across more as a ruthless murderer than a flamboyant firestarter. Written in a pseudo-Victorian style, the story does tend to feature less action than a modern-day story, and while this isn’t necessarily a problem, it does show up a major flaw in McCreet’s writing – character. Large parts of the book consist of two or three people sitting down in a room to discuss the case, or swap hypotheses, or have the detectives squaring off against their unlikely collaborators. Unfortunately none of the characters are distinguishable from each other, be it policeman, detective, or the criminal masterminds Noah Dyson or “The General”. A few times my attention wandered, and after a few paragraphs of dialogue I couldn’t tell who was speaking. Perhaps more important, at some points it didn’t matter who was speaking, as dialogue-heavy chapters centred around police meetings where there mainly to push the plot. This achieved, the action would restart in the following chatper. It’s a shame, because with strong characters, The Incendiary’s Trail is a book I would really love rather than just like, but I found everyone is annoyingly two-dimensional. Perhaps this is a problem with the author’s chosen style – in trying to emulate Victorian prose, everybody talks very formally, with every 19th century dialogue cliche in evidence. This is all very well, but there is a big risk that everybody will sound the same. Unfortunately, this is the case with The Incendiary’s Trail.

The other issue I have with the book is perhaps less the author’s fault and one to ask McCreet’s editor about. There are some quite eye-popping continuity and textual errors throughout the book, which, while undoubtedly introduced by McCreet himself in his drafts, should have been picked up immediately and corrected by his editor. For example, at one point a house guest is offered tea but declines, and later the same page the host wonders why the guest hasn’t touched his tea (that’ll be because he didn’t want any?). Elsewhere, someone is sitting down, then stands up, then rests his head against the chair (so he’s sitting down again?), and then sits down. These are minor errors and in isolation they might be hard to notice, but the book has plenty more. A more serious gaff is the switching of point of view (and character, and actually location) between two paragraphs with no break in scene or even story flow (implying the change is deliberate). All of these should have been picked up prior to publication, but as it is, they make the writing feel very green, almost as if it’s the draft-before-final. Given some more work, The Incendiary’s Trail would shine. As it is, it merely glints dully. You can see the potential there, and there is enough to keep the reader intrigued, but it needs another draft and another editorial pass.

All of which makes me wonder about the Macmillan New Writing imprint. With MNW, the author doesn’t get an advance, but gets a larger royalty on sales than is normally offered. So if a book is good and does well, the author can potentially earn much more from it than if they’d gone the traditional route. If a book doesn’t sell well, the publisher has reduced their risk as they didn’t pay out a lump sum to begin with, which might never be earned back, and both publisher and author at least get something back. There are a lot of people who are of the opinion that advanceless book deals are unacceptable, and that it doesn’t even count as a professional sale. I’m steering well clear of that argument as I can see pros and cons from both sides. But I do wonder how far the cost saving/risk reduction goes with the publisher. McCreet himself has said that the editorial input on his manuscript was light, and I think this shows in the finished product. Does this mean that less is spent by the publisher on editorial time, reducing costs even further? It’s impossible to tell, of course, and such data is commercially sensitive to the publisher and, quite rightly, is none of our business. Also, I’ve read plenty of other books that made it to print but which were clearly in dire need of a closer edit! But the fact that The Incendiary’s Trail originally came from the MNW imprint played at the back of my mind as I read it.

Despite my misgivings, The Incendiary’s Trail is an entertaining read. If you are a fan of Victorian literature or just the 19th century in general, it’s a must-read. Fans of crime and police procedural fiction will also want to snap this up. While it may lack characterisation and have some distracting editorial goofs, there are some spectacular and memorable set pieces, and I am very much looking forward to McCreet’s next novel in the same setting, The Vice Club, due out later this year.

Rating: