The Ten Word Game: Crime, Antiques and the Inimitable Lovejoy

by Jonathan Gash

Book Overview

A mystery in the long-running series featuring the well-known antiques "divvy" and general bad boy, Lovejoy. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312323476
• ISBN13: 9780312323479
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.6" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Lovejoy prevails

I love the series, sadly the television series is not out on DVD. many of the more recent stories are also hard to get and not in print in the US. It took me awhile to find this copy. The best part about Lovejoy is the antiques and Gash's profound knowledge and his artful way of weaving real history into the mix. I love the series and hope for many more to come.

What a smasher of a book!

This book is a real smasher. We have Lovejoy at his very best here. And the setting that Gash has set this book in is quite wonderful. And the women! Lovejoy has a whole string of quite wonderful women in his orbit this time. Lovejoy is on the lam again, and while he's hiding out in Southampton he gets hijacked onto an ocean cruise to Russia that includes all points north. He's living the high life on the cruise, and he meets all kinds of weird and wonderful people, but it takes him a while to determine why he was shanghaied and what this group of crooks need him for. But never fear. The irrepressible Lovejoy lands on his feet and he'll be around to deal with other outrageous adventures.

The words are what it's about

I would read this book just for the words - words I've never seen before, juicy new words, almost none of which appear in my dictionary since they turn out to be British slang. I fall for British writers the way some people fall for accents. "Black hair fungated above his straining belt." "Benjie would marmalise me if I so much as looked at Gloria." "Once a boxer, he looks a real gent and wears a monocle, very Brigade of Guards, waistcoated, suit, George boots, a toff." "Rob the Hermitage, join this gaggle of duckeggs enacting a crazy Priscilla-of-the-Lower-Third dream?" "A crocodile of passengers," "I wittered, a perfect prat," "a mingy three pieces of toast ... a manky plate of toast," "I said, gormless," "scarpering through undergrowth...." How can you not like a book abounding with such charms? The book has even more pleasures, chief among them antiques and art forgery. Lovejoy is a "divvy," someone who can divine true antiques by nearly fainting when he's in their presence. He's used this talent for a career just sort of definitely almost barely (his words) this side of the law. He is drawn against his will into a mysterious caper involving the Hermitage and a shipful of antique enthusiasts, almost none of whom can recognize a real antique from a fake. The mystery never completely resolves, a flaw that can be overlooked since it's secondary to the local color in the book. Occasional forays into the history of amber, pottery, wicker chairs and other antiques are a lot of fun, and Lovejoy is quite a storyteller. Is it true that Elvis once entered an Elvis impersonator contest and lost?

Lovejoy Takes A Cruise

Here's another wonderful entry in the long running, always entertaining Lovejoy series. Once again the "lovable rogue" - I know, it's a hackneyed phrase, but also most appropriate - Lovejoy, the antique specialist with questionable ethics, is up to his old tricks in his usual inimitable style.Lovejoy is on the move, as usual the reason for this is to avoid capture, finding passage on a luxury liner for what could have been a very relaxing voyage. Of course, Lovejoy being Lovejoy, nothing is ever easy and a constant stream of unusual events soon enlivens the trip. These events shape his movements, backing him into a corner that puts him at his most imaginative in his bid to get out from under.The Lovejoy books are completely amusing and provide clever mysteries and this one lives right up to that billing.

Lovejoy at his delightfully cocky witty best

Lovejoy hides in plain sight accepting a low paying job that he could define in his ten word descriptions as: hard, stinky with no financial or otherwise satisfaction, but safe. However, as is the norm with Lovejoy a woman intercedes so that the word safe changes to shanghaied. The female and the antiques expert finds himself imprisoned in a mollycoddled way on the cruise ship Melissa heading to Russia with a boat load of antique lovers and experts, and a few passengers with criminal intent needing Lovejoy's talent.The plan is simple. Lovejoy will visit Leningrad's Hermitage Museum to allegedly abscond with a master or two. However, as he is pampered from Amsterdam to Oslo, and finally Leningrad, he learns the true caper. Lovejoy is to steal the renowned wall panels of the Amber Room, a feat ranking with those of Hercules.As usual with a Lovejoy tale, the plot is all over the place in a frantic, often amusing, but always meandering manner even when someone lectures on seemingly dry topics. The key to this novel and any Lovejoy story is the antihero whose two vices are women and antiques with no compunction on how he scores with either. THE TEN WORD GAME is Lovejoy at his delightfully cocky witty best in a tale that ambles across Europe.Harriet Klausner