The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep - HG Parry

Published by Redhook Books/Orbit/Hachette Book Group: New York, NY, 2020 (2019).

This is one of those books that caught my eye on a library shelf, and I got out with very little knowledge apart from judging it's cover. It is also one of those books that turned out to be very enjoyable.

Charley Sutherland is a lecturer at Prince Albert University (a riff on Victoria University) in Wellington, New Zealand, and has the unusual ability to 'summon' characters to life from books he is reading. He has been able to do this since at least the age of four, when his mother found him playing with the Cat in the Hat, and demanded that he put it back. Charley's brother Rob (the main point-of-view character in the novel) is a bit embarrassed by Charley's 'weirdness' and wants to keep it a secret, including from his long-term girlfriend Lydia. This becomes more difficult as strange events start to escalate, including a Uriah Heep becoming an intern at Rob's law firm, and a Hound of the Baskervilles attacking Rob and Charley at Charley's house.

Eventually the brothers discover that one 'summoned' character from Charley's childhood - a Nancy Drew-like girl detective called Millie Radcliffe-Dix - managed to avoid being 'returned' to her book, and has grown up in the real world. She also is protecting a number of fictional characters, with all of them residing in a street that is in a liminal space - a space between worlds. I include this much of the plot as Millie becomes the third main protagonist, and the three of them must join forces to work out who is behind the more sinister 'summonings', and what they are up to.

This book, the debut novel of a Wellington author, is a lot of fun, particularly in its use of classic fictional characters - and Charley, being an expert in Charles Dickens, means that a large number of them are Dickensian, which I enjoy. Although Charley is a legitimate 'summoner', anyone can accidentally 'summon' a character if they have a deep emotional connection with what they are reading - as a result The Street has five resident Mr Darcys. Each character reflects the reader's own interpretation of the text, and acts accordingly. This twist is one that can be played for laughs and to help advance the plot, depending on the requirements of the scene. Parry manages to provide her characters with a fairly 'authentic' feel, and this adds to the fun as well.

Although slightly over-long at the end, this a book I definitely recommend, and I will keep half an eye out for other things that Parry has written.

Completed 9 January 2024.

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