Member Reviews
Mr Finchley’s summer break long forgotten and he’s back at work when he is summoned to the boss. He is sent across the channel to Paris to meet with a client who has just inherited a sum of money. Whilst in Paris he meets a young boy named Robert who makes an excellent tour guide and they get kidnapped. In the end they return to England together and Robert finds himself a home and is happy. Will Mr Finchley Propose to his lady friend.
This book is ok. It wasn’t easy reading and it took me a long time to read. I would recommend it to people who like this sort of book. Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for access to this. Book in exchange for my honest review
The sequel to Mr Finchley Discovers His England which I liked and found the hapless character of Mr Finchley quite amusing.
In Mr Finchley Goes To Paris Mr Finchley, Mr. Finchley sets off on another trip, only to have unexpected adventures instead. I enjoyed this one and can't wait to read the next book in the series.
Received a review copy from the publisher and NetGalley. All thoughts are my own and in no way influenced by the aforementioned.
#MrFinchley #NetGalley
An ebullient Mr Finchley is about to propose marriage to a lady he had rescued from mishap, when he is sent to Paris by his firm.
There he manages to upset a boat, adopt a stray orphan and get himself kidnapped. The fine tangle he gets into takes some unravelling! Only when eventually back in London does he complete the proposal of marriage that was interrupted at the start.
Jerome Jerome meets Mr Bean in this gentle comedy series, which was a runaway bestseller on first publication in the 1930s and retains a timeless appeal today. It has been dramatized twice for BBC Radio, with the 1990 series regularly repeated.
Review
This is the 2nd installment and even better than the first. His escapades are adventurous and quirky. As he travels throughout Paris you are drawn into the story and kept interested until the very en.
Highly recommend.
This is the second book in an trilogy starring Mr Finchley and his wonderfully penned adventures. He first took us on his holiday in England and met a myriad of oddballs and originals!
This time he takes us all the way to Paris. Again the way he arrives is obscure and definitely not British It is written in the innocence of the 1930’s. More trust less fear and definitely a can do attitude from our ‘dear’ Mr Finchley.
Another tale (no spoilers from me ever) for you to grab a brew and have a me time afternoon whether you are a man or a woman and enjoy the antics of a good old fashioned English man getting up to his adventures. Which are totally different to todays adventures I will tell you that!
Sometimes rib~ticklingly funny and lots of humour , a proper treat.
Mr.Finchely is a charming look back at the 1930s a lovely series well written characters come alive.This time Mr.Finchleys in Paris for work fun joining him there.#netgalley#Farragobooks
I am always up for trying a reprint of older books, preferably mysteries but I sometimes succumb to interesting-sounding books of other genres. This was one of those latter forays that turned out to be an interesting read.
Mr. Finchley is back in his routine after his last adventure. He has retained one connection he made towards the end. She is a big part of his daily life now and he hopes to change their relationship but things get in the way (which seems to be a recurring factor in his life).
The biggest hurdle/surprise turns out to be an assignment that takes him to Paris. He starts off as a solo traveler but picks up friends on the way. There are a lot of things that happen to him in this tale, but the mental processing of his reactions to the unfolding events are the draw in this narrative. He is such a likable character who on top of being 'ordinary' is a good man who means no harm to anyone but does not refrain from protecting himself or others. There is more growth in his life in this book than the last, the humour laced into the tale more pronounced and overall a definite improvement from the first adventure.He keeps referring to what constitutes an English lifestyle to Robert(his closest ally in the tale) who has never been to England despite having English parents, this was a very interesting part of the story. Once again the ending is the best part and although anyone could see it coming from almost the start of the Paris section, are still is a touching set of scenes.
Parisian Papa
In his inimitable way, Mr Finchley finds himself involved with all manner of folk as he discovers Paris. He'd been to France in the war and learned a bit of the lingo, but wartime ports and La Dame Paris are two different kettles of fish. And he returns home with riches beyond compare--and beyond money. This story stands alone, although you will, perhaps, enjoy some of Mr F's idiosyncracies a bit more if you've perused book one.
Written in an entirely different age this just does not read well in this day and age.
If you can ignore the total innocence of the era then it may be for you.
I personally struggled.
I like the continuing of this series. The author has captured the spirit of the era and the "gentleman" that is Mr Finchley.. He has created a storyline full of mishap and misadventure but told with an almost courtly charm. Each character is so well drawn and i look forward to reading more
A charming glimpse into life in the 1930's, a simple and joyful escape from reality.
Wonderful and engaging characterisation and well written, a real pleasure to read. I will certainly read more of them.
I am giving it 5 stars as sometimes all you need is total enjoyment.
The sequel to Mr Finchley Discovers His England, but where that was a fantasy of the downtrodden office worker's escape to the country, this soon reveals itself as the story of a bachelor settling down to domesticity and parenthood, which for me was never likely to make for such a congenial read, even before one considers the lines about 'duty to the race' and similar concepts which, 80 years down the line, can't help but read somewhat awkwardly. On top of which, and this may be stating the obvious, but it's a book about a trip to Paris. And that is a city which disappointed me hugely on my one visit for reasons in which this book rather rubs my face. For instance, Mr Finchley's excitement at all the new and strange and uniquely Parisian shops – whereas, post-globalisation, I think the most excited I got by a shop was when I saw that they still had still had a C&A (and one which looked like a secret police HQ, at that). When Canning talks of "A city which managed to be a capital without being ugly and too busy for beauty", he expresses the diametric opposite of my own experience, in which the place felt at once too small and too preserved to be a proper capital, while somehow still managing to be almost entirely full of motorways, as though London had been cursed with a Euston Road every two blocks. Still, other bits land better, like the frustration of being replied to in English, despite not being that good at spoken French and it probably being a mercy for all concerned. And yes, everyone French he meets is quite spectacularly French, but then in the first book the Britons were equally stereotypically British, so that seems fair enough. The most surprising detail, for me: mention is made of the difficulty of earning a living in France – a situation apparently significantly worse than in Britain, the parlous state of whose own economy in the 1930s was not wholly avoided in the first book, despite its overall sense of something close to idyll. Which is one of those moments that brings home the unknown unknowns. After all, it's common knowledge that things were bad here and in America in the thirties, and worse in Germany. But why should France not also have been having a tough time? It's just not one of those details that survives in the general memory here, though I'm sure it does in France.
Inevitably, given the first novel was the story of a buttoned-up man's gradual unbuttoning, Mr Finchley needs to be buttoned back up a little before we begin, but it doesn't feel like too egregious a use of the reset, well, button. He's not all the way back to being the constrained soul he was, and after all, don't we all return to our shell a little once back from holiday? Still, a few notes do ring false, like the idea that one misses spring in the city, which seems perverse when we know from the opening that Mr Finchley lives near, and casually crosses, Hampstead Heath. Once again, it's an instruction from his boss that sets Finchley off on his adventures: not that he take a holiday, this time, but that he should go meet with the wastrel heir of a deceased client, in order to retain the estate's business for his employers. What follows is much as before in terms of constantly derailed plans, though given the geographical limits there isn't quite the same variety of incident, and at times the narrative can lean a little too heavily into the bluff and hearty, the notion that down-home simplicity is intrinsically redemptive. And at one point the story really does seem to follow the first book a little too closely: having the same man accidentally kidnapped in two successive books feels excessive.
The big surprise, though, is that with fully a third of the book still to go, Mr Finchley returns to England, accompanied (because of some plot) by an urchin he found in Paris, a boy of English stock but who has been raised by a Parisian bargeman. And if anything, the quality of hijinks markedly improves at this point. At times it suggests a William story, albeit told from the perspective of the father, and with more grudging admiration sneaking in than the father could ever let show. There are fine descriptive passages throughout the book, but it's around here that the comic flair really kicks up a gear, with Wodehousian descriptions such as a bulldog "lurching towards Mr Finchley with very much the expression and mood of a bandy-legged pugilist who has invested his savings in an unpopular public-house and has decided to throw out a traveller who has innocently said: "Bit quiet in here, ain't it?"." The only sour note, alas, is the name of the urchin. For just as Norman Spinrad's sixties SF novel Agent of Chaos presciently named its protagonist Boris Johnson, so Canning chanced to call the adopted tyke Robert Gillespie. Meaning whatever sympathies one may have with the lad are at war with the wish that Mr Finchley should bop him on the head with an oar and chuck him in the canal, before he can grow up to churn out decades of terrible Stones pastiches and worse political takes
(Netgalley ARC)
This was a fun step back into time (the 1930's).
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for making this available to me.
This is a delightful novel. Recommend it for the young and older alike.
Mr. Finchley is a clerk who has had a bland but comfortable life. He has enough money to do what he likes, but not so much as to be considered rich.. In other words, he is content. He does not venture far from his everyday...but the last few years have changed his outlook a bit. First book found him on a vacation, first one ever! And he had quite a lot of an adventure ( you should read that one too ) , this book finds him in Paris to meet a client and by the end of the story he has acquired a wife and a son.....very pleasant reading. No murders or mysteries, just a great story.
Mr. Finchley Goes to Paris is the second installment of Victor Canning's wonderful trilogy about a solicitor's clerk and his travels.
This time our protagonist is located to Paris on an assignment for his company. As expected, a series of mishaps and misunderstandings lead to numerous adventures, this time with his local tour guide, Robert involved.
The final third of the book returns to England where Mr. Finchley's life changes forever. As per the previous book, this gentle action and adventure can not be recommended more highly.
A year on from the previous book, Mr. Finchley has been keeping company with a lovely widow. He’s finally decided to make a solemn and dignified proposal. Yet it is almost as if Mrs. Crantell is aware of his intentions and decides to speak of how people their age are set in their ways and unable to change. Taking what he imagines is her gentle dissuasion, Mr. Finchley does not propose. Perhaps she is right and they would only end up dissatisfied as well as having lost their friendship.
His hearty, avuncular boss decides to send Mr. Finchley to Paris for a few days to meet with a rich client – a client rich enough that the firm goes to him and waits on his schedule. As in the earlier story, Mr. Finchley is soon meeting new people including a glasses wearing entomologist with something strange in his coat pocket.
A lovely book in the trilogy but can also be read as a stand alone novel, I enjoyed reading more of Mr. Finchleys adventures.
I really enjoy this series! Mr. Finchley is going to Paris between the world wars. The story continues seamlessly and the characters are wonderful. I love visiting this time period and Mr Finchley is one of my favorite tour guides. I received a copy from NetGalley and the publisher and this is my honest opinon.
Love Mr Finchley. And now I love Robert too!
As he travels to Paris for work, Mr Finchley is still getting into his unfortunate scrapes and mishaps.
Beautifully written and a very enjoyable read.
A humorous trip to Paris between the wars
This is the second of a trilogy of novels written by Victor Canning many years ago, about a much different life; this time in Paris then London between the world wars. It is sweet without being saccharine, full of unique and interesting characters. I find the pacing a bit slow for my more modern brain, hence the 4 star review. The plot is amusing, it is definitely worth reading in front of a fire or on the porch of your vacation cabin.
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for a time-constrained e-arc; the views expressed are my own.
Reviewed on Amazon.com, posting pending Amazon review process.
Mr. Finchley soon happily steps out in the Parisian evening, enjoying the sights, sounds and experience. Though he discovers that despite summoning his best French, the French will always answer him in English. It is after being swept into a free-for-all fistfight in a square that follows a political demonstration, that Mr. Finchley’s life will be changed again.
No matter what comes his way, one is always sure that Mr. Finchley will manage to overcome it, right it, fix it and gently help it along. I will warn that there is one little bit (a quarter of a page) that occurs which is a product of its age. Mr. Finchley’s orphan has been reading Wild West magazines and, while dressed in a blanket (he’d lost his trousers) and resembling “a red Indian,” he speaks two sentences in “Native American” pigeon English.
In proceeding through his adventures, Mr. Finchley discovers that maybe he’s not too old to change. Perhaps he’s just coming to some momentous events a bit later in life than many of his fellows but he’s still capable of meeting the challenges. Can he triumph over the last obstacle in his path to wedded bliss and help give a young boy a future – as well as giving another romance a gentle nudge? Of course, he’s Mr. Finchley.
Enjoy this gentle trip back to days gone by with mild mannered, middle aged Mr. Finchley and the new cast of characters. B+
Following in the footsteps of the first novel in the series, Mr. Finchley sets off on another trip, only to have unexpected adventures instead. I enjoyed this book even more than I enjoyed the first (where he discovered “his England”) because my family and I were just in Paris last year. It was fascinating to read about places we had also seen and to compare Mr. Finchley’s experiences with our own. We didn’t have the adventures that he did, but it still brought back beautiful memories. This is a charming series, and I look forward to rereading these books in the future. Thank you to Farrago Publishing via NetGalley for a digital ARC.