Book Review: Johnny Come Home

Reviewed By: Catherine Thompson - RAM

Johnny Come Home     Amazon US PB Amazon US TPB Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada TPB
Jake Arnott
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Fiction
Sceptre, $24.95 trade paperback, 278 pages

London, 1972: The Swinging Sixties have given way to bitter political activism and disillusionment. Charming anarchist Declan O’Connell commits suicide, leaving his boyfriend Pearson and fellow squatter Nina to pick up the pieces and try to make sense of this most senseless act.

Whilst wandering in Piccadilly, Pearson happens upon a streetwise rent boy known as Sweet Thing, and on a whim invites him back to the squat. Sweet Thing quickly ingratiates himself with both Pearson and Nina, while maintaining his strange connection with glam rocker Johnny Chrome. And on the fringes lurks Detective Sergeant Eric Walker of the Bomb Squad, who knows more about O’Connell than anyone suspects. The courses of their lives are about to change—for better and for worse.

Johnny Come Home isn’t a crime novel in the traditional sense. There are crimes committed (a bombing and a murder), and Nina is involved in picketing the Central Criminal Courts where the Stoke Newington Eight are on trial, but these seem almost peripheral to the story, which is driven by and surrounds these five characters. The central character appears only once, at the very beginning: Declan O’Connell. His suicide sets off a chain reaction that eventually links all the characters and pushes them to do things they wouldn’t normally do.

I found myself drawn into the story, despite the rather cinematic writing (Arnott can’t settle down and choose a point-of-view character for any given scene). The strongest character by far is Nina, Pearson’s bisexual housemate. Johnny Come Home poses questions of identity: if you invest your whole being into someone or something else, how do you know who you are?

Catherine Thompson - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Catherine Thompson - RAM