Review - The Other Half / The In Crowd, Charlotte Vassell

Right up front - I fell over this series via the library, loving the first I read so much so, that I reserved the second available immediately and read it as soon as it arrived. I'm annoyed with myself now because they were published in 2023 and 2024 respectively and I can't see how there's going to be another one soon enough (by that I mean immediately). So the fact that I'm reviewing both of these at once should not be seen to understate just how enjoyable these were. 

Centred around the character of DI Caius Beauchamp, this is a series that pokes fun at most everybody this excellent, diligent and somewhat personally challenged inspector of police encounters as part of his investigating duties, which just happen to be concentrated in the circles of the wealthy uppercrust. From which Beauchamp, despite the name, most definitely does not come. So much so, there's an ongoing in joke about the coincidence of his and the main suspect / entitled twat sharing a surname, albeit with a different pronunciation and ethnicity. Beauchamp is also not a lone wolf, he's got an excellent pair of able assistants in DS Matt Cheung and DC Amy Noakes, who have their own life challenges, although they all share a love of food (maybe not the stuff that Beauchamp is eating as part of his health kick), and going the extra mile to solve a case. They are also supremely comfortable as a working team, with a good line in sarcastic one liners, empathy and consideration for each others personal foibles. 

Good characterisation in both these novels is well supported by a great couple of plots - each involving the upperclasses in their daily pursuit of amusing themselves gone wrong. 

In THE OTHER HALF, Rupert Beauchamp, has organised a black tie birthday celebration for himself at the Kentish Town McDonalds, with plenty of champagne, cocaine and bad behaviour on display. The after effects of the night are more keenly felt by some though, when the body of Rupert's long time girlfriend, Clemency (Clemmie) is discovered in a park, wearing a ball gown, after not making an appearance at the birthday party, by a jogging Caius (there's too many Beauchamps to not go with first names). The investigation of this death is complicated by Rupert's pursuit of Callie, an undertaking that Caius is also involved in, a heap of alibis that seem to rely on a very small number of intertwined people, and the 'Help for Hippos' charity that seems to keep popping up all over the place.

In THE IN CROWD, it's pre-wedding garden party celebrations stacked up against a drowning, and milliner (Calliope / Callie) finally admitting her bestie (Harriet) is really a piece of work who her newly announced fiance (Inigo) is welcome to, whilst the police investigate a body that turned up not that far away floating in the river Thames. Once again, Rupert Beauchamp and his awful caste of accolytes and associates are connected to this case.

It might all sound a bit "having a go at the uppercrust", which it is, and it's well done and profoundly satisfying to read into the bargain. It also should, most definitely, sound like satire, which it is in spades, but cleverly done, subtle and very tongue in cheek, concentrating on the two sides. The good guys being a nice, fun, "sort of normal" group of cops; the bad guys being an impossibly entitled bunch of deplorables; both groups lined up behind a very different Beauchamp leader - a nice touch.

In amongst the satire and the subtle humour there's a very dark picture being painted of the entitled classes and some nasty crimes - rape, murder, drug taking and dealing, and breathtaking selfishness and entitlement. The series, rather than shying away, dives head first into questions of race and class, gender inequality, and the effect that money and power has. It does all that in a very accessible, entertaining, and engaging manner.