I have come to look forward to the release of a new novel by Kate Atkinson. The first novel of hers that I have read is Life After Life, in which the protagonist, Ursula Todd, is reborn every time she dies, and keeps reliving her life over and over again with differences from her previous lives. It is an intriguing premise and a great novel. I have also read A God in Ruins, which features Ursula’s younger brother, Teddy, and Transcription. Life After Life, A God in Ruins and Transcription, along with Shrines of Gaiety, are all set in the years around and during the two World Wars. Atkinson also writes the contemporary mystery series featuring private investigator Jackson Brodie. I have read the first Jackson Brodie novel, Case Histories, and thought it was a good read about three separate cold cases that are unexpectedly linked, but I prefer Atkinson’s historical fiction, with Shrines of Gaiety being no exception.

Shrines of Gaiety is set in 1926 and focuses on the Soho nightclub life that flourished in London between the wars. The novel revolves itself around Nellie Coker, the queen of the nightclubs, who has just been released from a six-month stint in prison when the novel opens. Nellie, who is based on the real queen of nightclubs in London during this time, finds herself facing a hostile takeover of her nightclubs on two fronts. The first is from Detective Chief Inspector Maddox, who was on the take and would warn Nellie when her nightclubs were about to be raided before she went to prison. The second is from the mysterious Azzopardi, who seems to have a vendetta against Nellie, although she cannot think why.

Nellie is a formidable woman who always seems to be one step ahead of her enemies, and who seems to have some remorse for the role she plays in the seedy London underlife. She would be more likeable, though, if she actually showed some affection towards her six children and if the crimes she commits were done out of motherly love rather than for attaining wealth and power. But then, her children, except for her oldest child Niven, are practically useless idiots. It just goes to show that wealth cannot buy brains and character.

Shrines of Gaiety is told from the perspectives of many different characters besides Nellie whose stories are all intertwined and caught up in Nellie’s web, including Detective Chief Inspector Frobisher, who wants to take down Nellie and her nightclubs; Gwendolen Kelling, who is recruited by Frobisher to spy on Nellie and who finds herself falling for Niven; and Freda Murgatroyd, a teenage girl who has run away to London to seek fame on the stage, but ends up a dance girl in one of Nellie’s nightclubs. There are as many characters to root for in Shrines of Gaiety as there are characters to dislike or be annoyed with.

Like Atkinson’s other novels, Shrines of Gaiety transports you to the time in which it is set. It is an authentic portrait of 1920s London and does not shy away from the seediness of time with its drugs, the debauchery of the “Bright Young Things”, prostitution, back-alley abortions, murder, and bodies being dumped in the Thames. Atkinson is matter of fact as she narrates the goings-on of her characters, but her writing is also quirky and witty, which makes her novels more palatable despite the gruesomeness or tragicness of her subject matter. Be warned, though, that Kate Atkinson does not write happy endings; she writes real ones.