Trumpets Sound No More: by Jon Redfern

Trumpets Sound No More is a very fascinating detective novel set in the Victorian Era. The story follows Owen Endersby, a detective, throughout London in the acting and theater community. Endersby receives a new case about the murder of a future owner of a theater named Samuel Cake. This case that Owen Endersby receives is only one of the many cases he has to solve throughout the novel. Endersby does not only have his working and mystery solving side of life to worry about, but also goes home to think about their son that had past away. While working on the main case of the murder of Samuel Cake, Endersby also encounters many other mysteries which he solves for the theaters. Endersby does end up solving the case of Samuel Cake to find that it was the murderer was an actor Will Weston.

When reading Trumpets Sound No More I found that Redfern did give many interesting descriptions of London. The description of London in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and Trumpets Sound No More were very similar and I think Redfern did an excellent job in describing London. In the very beginning of chapter three, Jon Redfern talks about how London looks on the Lord's Day, which he describes as a very solemn time meaning it is a very formal and important day. "We continue our story on this, the Lord's Day, a solemn time, the London air still cold and forever grey with chimney smoke." (page 44) I think that this introduction to the chapter gives a perfect example of one of the aspects of London, being very dark and dull when he says it is "forever grey with chimney smoke."

When comparing Trumpets Sound No More to Great Expectations it was easy to identify multiple characters between the two novels that had similarities and differences. One pair of characters I found were Endersby and Jaggers. I thought that both men were similar because both their jobs deal with the law and criminals. Although being a lawyer and a detective are very different, they deal with the same type of people. Endersby and Jaggers are also similar because they both take their jobs seriously at work and at home. Endersby never goes home and completely relaxes because he is always pondering the case he has to solve at his home. Jaggers is also like this because he takes all of his work home and works in his home. Jaggers takes his job very seriously and almost never takes time to relax or to take a break from his job. I found that Betty and Biddy were also two characters that contrasted between Trumpets Sound No More and Great Expectations. I found that Betty and Biddy both respect others and display manners to the other characters in the novels. The difference between the two is that because Biddy was educated, she ends up with a better and happier life with Joe, whereas Betty has spent her whole life in the theater business and eventually tragically dies. A third comparison of characters from Trumpets Sound No More and Great Expectations is Caldwell and Herbert. I think that these two characters are similar in the way that they both aid the protagonist and help them throughout the novel and are seen as a more right hand man to the protagonist. They are also both respectful characters and listen to what the protagonist has to say. Caldwell and Herbert are also different because Herbert does not directly work with Pip but Caldwell helps Endersby solve cases by directly helping him with his work.

The three themes that I found in Trumpets Sound No More are guilt, innocence, and crime, justice, and love. Guilt, innocence, and crime are shown throughout the novel because of the different mystery cases that Endersby has to solve. They display the guilty and innocent people who were thought to have killed Samuel Cake, and all the different crime that goes on in the theaters. This theme of guilt, innocence, and crime was also studied in our English class when we read Great Expectations. Another theme that was displayed was justice. This theme was very easy to identify because all of the characters (especially Endersby) want justice in the theaters and was everything to be resolved so they have nothing to fear. The last theme I found in Trumpets Sound No More is love. I thought love was still a very important theme in the novel because it was something that kept characters like Endersby going. If Endersby did not have a wife to come home to in the night and to have a son that had passed away to love and think about, Endersby would find it more difficult to work on his cases. Love is also another theme that we had studied for Great Expectations and is a important theme in both novels.

In Jon Refern's depiction of the theatre world in London, England, I was surprised to see how the theater's were all connected in a way. Not that the different theaters would work with on another but that each person knows every actor at their theater and any other theater. I found this interesting because I thought of the theater world as each theater more private and had no relations to any other theaters.

The two prominent symbols that I found in Trumpets Sound No More were the glove left at Cake's house and the meetings at pubs in London. The glove was the original clue that eventually led to finding the criminal Will Weston to be the actor that had murdered Samuel Cake. The glove displays the crime throughout the novel and was the original item that invoked justice into Endersby because he had wanted to solve this mystery. The pubs in London also show where the crime is originated in this novel. This is because the pubs are where the criminals would meet in the novel.