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The Incendiary's Trail
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Review
'Suitably grisly and lurid, a highly enjoyable gas-lit melodrama penned with tremendous style and wit.'
--R. N. Morris
--R. N. Morris
Review
'Victorian in both the setting and the telling, full of vividly depicted squalor and grotesquery...Well worth reading.'
'McCreet's depiction of Victorian London is fantastic. The city is almost alive in this book.'
'McCreet's depiction of Victorian London is fantastic. The city is almost alive in this book.'
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Wonderful to have a fresh opportunity to enjoy London as a scene of Dickensian squalor, with suitably grotesque characters and an intriguing and original plot. I very much appreciated the author's skill in teasing the reader with solutions to elements of the mystery throughout the novel, rather than saving it all until the last few pages - and there was always plenty more to keep me intrigued and racing to the end. Fans of Mr. Whicher should recognise some of the characters, and the setting of London's new detective force in its infancy, but with all the excitement and mystery surrounding the murder and none of the dullness. Don't get me wrong: I am a fan of Mr Whicher but the book is constrained by the need to stick to the facts: one friend described it to me as 'so boring, and yet so compelling' which I think is pretty accurate. As a work of fiction The Incendiary's Trail is not thus constrained and that means you get all the compelling without the boring!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I picked this up in a bookshop thinking it might be something like Sherlock Holmes, and in fact there's a quoute on the first pages from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle saying, basically, that he took his ideas from Edgar Allen Poe. That sold it to me because I like Poe even more than I like the Sherlock Holmes stories.
This book isn't exactly like either of those writers though. It has the clever solutions of Holmes (there's a great bit where a man is killed inside a locked room) and it has some of the weird darkness of Poe (the first chapter is especially unnerving). The effect, I suppose, is like watching a modern film in the style of those Victorian writers, directed by Terry Gilliam or maybe Tim Burton. A lot of the scenes are very visual.
There are some great characters and the story moves quickly, but for me the best bits were the scenes of Victorian London. Sometimes it feels like you can almost smell the place, and the final scene in the balloons is really atmospheric.
If I have one criticism, it's that I'd like to know more about the main characters- where they came from and where they are going to. I think this could easily be the first book in a series - it feels like a lot more can happen - so perhaps I'll find out more later. If you like old-style detective books or Victorian history, this is a good read.
This book isn't exactly like either of those writers though. It has the clever solutions of Holmes (there's a great bit where a man is killed inside a locked room) and it has some of the weird darkness of Poe (the first chapter is especially unnerving). The effect, I suppose, is like watching a modern film in the style of those Victorian writers, directed by Terry Gilliam or maybe Tim Burton. A lot of the scenes are very visual.
There are some great characters and the story moves quickly, but for me the best bits were the scenes of Victorian London. Sometimes it feels like you can almost smell the place, and the final scene in the balloons is really atmospheric.
If I have one criticism, it's that I'd like to know more about the main characters- where they came from and where they are going to. I think this could easily be the first book in a series - it feels like a lot more can happen - so perhaps I'll find out more later. If you like old-style detective books or Victorian history, this is a good read.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition
James McCreet's The Incendiary's Trail, infused with exotic, almost paranormal strains of morbidity, peopled by ogre-like unfortunates, verging on the grotesque, and set in the dark London of the "Penny Dreadfuls" is paradoxically a stunning and enthralling work. The prose vivid, energetic and powerfully descriptive, without succumbing to hyperbole or melodrama, presents each scenario in but one colour -- gray --but what a wealth of tonal shades are encompassed in its creation. This is storytelling at its finest and has been crafted by a confident artisan. Robert Davidson. The Tuzla Run
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