London, 1850. Fog in the air and filth in the streets, from the rat-infested graveyard of Tom-All-Alone's to the elegant chambers in Lincoln's Inn Fields, where the formidable lawyer Edward Tulkinghorn has powerful clients to protect, and a deadly secret to hide. Only that secret is now under threat from a shadowy and unseen adversary - an adversary who must be tracked down at all costs, before it's too late. Who better for such a task than young Charles Maddox? Unfairly dismissed from the police force, Charles is struggling to establish himself as a private detective. Only business is slow and his one case a dead end, so when Tulkinghorn offers a handsome price for an apparently simple job Charles is unable to resist. But as he soon discovers, nothing here is what it seems. An assignment that starts with anonymous letters leads soon to a brutal murder, as the investigation lures Charles ever deeper into the terrible darkness Tulkinghorn will stop at nothing to conceal. Inspired by Charles Dickens' masterpiece Bleak House, Tom-All-Alone's is a new and gripping Victorian murder mystery which immerses the reader in a grim London underworld that Dickens could only hint at - a world in which girls as young as ten work the night as prostitutes, unwanted babies are ruthlessly disposed of, and those who threaten the rank and reputations of great men are eliminated at once, and without remorse.
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It s a highly compelling, immaculately written 19th-century murder mystery. --Independent on Sunday
A necessary eye for squalor, meticulous research and deft plotting, as well as the ability to handle the difficult God's-eye-view narration with aplomb...you'll be guaranteed to enjoy.--The Guardian
A grisly period detective story with a light-hearted literary conceit.--The Times
An intelligent, gripping and beautifully written novel which sparkles with bibliophilic glee. --The Scotsman
A necessary eye for squalor, meticulous research and deft plotting, as well as the ability to handle the difficult God's-eye-view narration with aplomb...you'll be guaranteed to enjoy.--The Guardian
Beautifully written..Shepherd has perfectly caught the tone of voice, ranging from the lawyer Tulkinghorn to Esther Summerson and Inspector Bucket, and describes the horrors of nineteenth century slums more candidly than any Victorian novelist ever could...an absorbing read. --Literary Review
A necessary eye for squalor, meticulous research and deft plotting, as well as the ability to handle the difficult God's-eye-view narration with aplomb...you'll be guaranteed to enjoy. --The Guardian
A necessary eye for squalor, meticulous research and deft plotting, as well as the ability to handle the difficult God's-eye-view narration with aplomb...you'll be guaranteed to enjoy.--The Guardian
A grisly period detective story with a light-hearted literary conceit.--The Times
An intelligent, gripping and beautifully written novel which sparkles with bibliophilic glee. --The Scotsman
A necessary eye for squalor, meticulous research and deft plotting, as well as the ability to handle the difficult God's-eye-view narration with aplomb...you'll be guaranteed to enjoy.--The Guardian
Beautifully written..Shepherd has perfectly caught the tone of voice, ranging from the lawyer Tulkinghorn to Esther Summerson and Inspector Bucket, and describes the horrors of nineteenth century slums more candidly than any Victorian novelist ever could...an absorbing read. --Literary Review
A necessary eye for squalor, meticulous research and deft plotting, as well as the ability to handle the difficult God's-eye-view narration with aplomb...you'll be guaranteed to enjoy. --The Guardian
Book Description
Tom-All-Alone's is a dark and gripping Victorian murder mystery, immersing the reader in a grim London underworld.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 17 people found the following review helpful
By Smith
Format:Hardcover
This is a good idea that doesn't quite come off. Using characters from both "Bleak House" and "The Woman in White", the author attempts to fashion a detective story that runs alongside the two classic novels - that is, she is not writing a sequel or a "prequel" but inserting her novel into the same time frame as the two novels she is attempting to emulate.Like the new Sherlock Holmes novel "The House of Silk", she deliberately uses themes that would never have been considered in Victorian times - this is fine but the overall impression is of a muddle. Maybe she is attempting to put too much in- such as the Jack the Ripper suggestion - certainly her display of her own knowledge is not always welcome and the contemporary asides are just an intrusion. Considering that Charles Maddox is supposed to be a great detective there is an awful lot that he misses or only latches on to when it is too late!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
There seems to be a tradition that novels set in Victorian London should be read in the dark days around Christmas. There's something about Dickensian themes which seem to suit this time, and in Tom All Alone's there is plenty of general murkiness and gloom to match what we in Britain see outside our windows.
Tom All Alone's is essentially a detective novel. Charles Maddox, a young ex-policeman has set himself up as a thief-taker. His Uncle, who Charles reveres, was an eminent detective and has mentored young Charles from his early boy-hood in the skills of his work, but alas is now a very elderly man but is still available as a sounding-board to Charles when particularly tricky problems need to be solved. Charles receives a commission from the scheming lawyer Edward Tulkinghorn but soon realises that this is a poisoned chalice which will lead him into some very dark places.
Lynn Shepherd is not constrained by the limits of Victorian sensibility in describing the gruesome murders which follow, nor the terrible conditions of the London slums in which the murders take place. We are taken on a tour around the narrow passages of central London, going in and out of coffee houses, rat-catching pits, disease-ridden brothels, foetid inns and rancid slums with no need to cover up the vile conditions of the time. Perhaps the most shocking descriptions the fate of the mentally ill (and those unfortunates who ended up in private asylums because their family wanted them safely out of the way).
A parallel narrative interleaves with the story of Charles' investigations.... Read more ›
Tom All Alone's is essentially a detective novel. Charles Maddox, a young ex-policeman has set himself up as a thief-taker. His Uncle, who Charles reveres, was an eminent detective and has mentored young Charles from his early boy-hood in the skills of his work, but alas is now a very elderly man but is still available as a sounding-board to Charles when particularly tricky problems need to be solved. Charles receives a commission from the scheming lawyer Edward Tulkinghorn but soon realises that this is a poisoned chalice which will lead him into some very dark places.
Lynn Shepherd is not constrained by the limits of Victorian sensibility in describing the gruesome murders which follow, nor the terrible conditions of the London slums in which the murders take place. We are taken on a tour around the narrow passages of central London, going in and out of coffee houses, rat-catching pits, disease-ridden brothels, foetid inns and rancid slums with no need to cover up the vile conditions of the time. Perhaps the most shocking descriptions the fate of the mentally ill (and those unfortunates who ended up in private asylums because their family wanted them safely out of the way).
A parallel narrative interleaves with the story of Charles' investigations.... Read more ›
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Tom-All-Alone's is both clever and ambitious, with a compelling story, great characters and a vividly realised 1850s London setting. It's the sort of book that would repay re-reading, possibly several times. It's also a better book then the author's previous novel, Murder at Mansfield Park. Yet while I happily gave that book 5 stars, Tom-All-Alone's just misses that mark because of its use of an omniscient modern narrator. While this is a playful and, again, clever conceit, I admired it without being able to forget about it, and it did pull me out of the story a couple of times.
There's a lot going on in this book. When we first meet hard up private detective Charles Maddox, he has recently left the Metropolitan detective force under a cloud. He is hunting a client's missing daughter with grim determination and little expectation of success. Then the powerful lawyer Edward Tulkinghorn hires Maddox to discover who is harassing a client with threatening letters. Thanks to the omniscient narrator, we learn straightaway that this deceptively simple job hides a sinister secret, one that will test Maddox's detective skills - and his tenacity - to the full.
There are several subplots, but the main one of these is narrated by a young woman called Hester, detailing her life in a place called Solitary House. These passages are so dreamy and innocent that they inspired an instant sense of creepiness, especially in contrast with the more action packed events of Maddox's story. Of course, these narratives do finally intersect in a suspenseful climactic scene that had me racing to finish it. I see some other reviewers here have criticised the plotting, but this seems a laughable charge to me, as Shepherd's plotting is both detailed and totally engrossing.... Read more ›
There's a lot going on in this book. When we first meet hard up private detective Charles Maddox, he has recently left the Metropolitan detective force under a cloud. He is hunting a client's missing daughter with grim determination and little expectation of success. Then the powerful lawyer Edward Tulkinghorn hires Maddox to discover who is harassing a client with threatening letters. Thanks to the omniscient narrator, we learn straightaway that this deceptively simple job hides a sinister secret, one that will test Maddox's detective skills - and his tenacity - to the full.
There are several subplots, but the main one of these is narrated by a young woman called Hester, detailing her life in a place called Solitary House. These passages are so dreamy and innocent that they inspired an instant sense of creepiness, especially in contrast with the more action packed events of Maddox's story. Of course, these narratives do finally intersect in a suspenseful climactic scene that had me racing to finish it. I see some other reviewers here have criticised the plotting, but this seems a laughable charge to me, as Shepherd's plotting is both detailed and totally engrossing.... Read more ›
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
I realise I'm out of step with most other reviewers, but I found this book a major disappointment after the wonderful Murder at Mansfield Park. There is no doubt that Lynn Shepherd writes well and has the ability to conjure up the atmosphere of Victorian London. However I felt that in this book she tried too hard to pack in references to some of the greatest novels of that age and in so doing disrupted the flow of her own plot.
The main reference is of course to Bleak House, but to set oneself up for a comparison to Dickens and then not to include any of the fun and joyousness that lightens the tone of even Dickens' darkest novels seems a strange decision and one that didn't work for me. Again, as she did in Murder at Mansfield Park, Shepherd twists the characters and plot of Bleak House but this time in a way that really grated. In MAMP, she gave us the enjoyable character of Mary to replace those characters she had made unlikeable - in this novel, I found all the characters unlikeable. And the irritating omniscient narrator device, constantly dragging us forward to the present day to look back on Victorian London with an air of smug superiority, became a really annoying distraction as the book wore on.
The first half of the book meandered along without giving us a real idea of what the detective Charles Maddox was trying to investigate - was it the disappearance of his sister, the deaths of the babies in the churchyard, the Tulkinghorn connection? The second half was more focused and she did manage to pull some of the threads together at the end, but still left too much unresolved, presumably as a hook for a follow-up - a follow-up that I'm afraid I will not be avidly awaiting.... Read more ›
The main reference is of course to Bleak House, but to set oneself up for a comparison to Dickens and then not to include any of the fun and joyousness that lightens the tone of even Dickens' darkest novels seems a strange decision and one that didn't work for me. Again, as she did in Murder at Mansfield Park, Shepherd twists the characters and plot of Bleak House but this time in a way that really grated. In MAMP, she gave us the enjoyable character of Mary to replace those characters she had made unlikeable - in this novel, I found all the characters unlikeable. And the irritating omniscient narrator device, constantly dragging us forward to the present day to look back on Victorian London with an air of smug superiority, became a really annoying distraction as the book wore on.
The first half of the book meandered along without giving us a real idea of what the detective Charles Maddox was trying to investigate - was it the disappearance of his sister, the deaths of the babies in the churchyard, the Tulkinghorn connection? The second half was more focused and she did manage to pull some of the threads together at the end, but still left too much unresolved, presumably as a hook for a follow-up - a follow-up that I'm afraid I will not be avidly awaiting.... Read more ›
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4.4 out of 5 stars
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant!
A very exciting read and satisfying ending and very vivid descriptions of 1850's London!
The Hero is great but if this is Charles Maddox's first adventure and 'A Treacherous... Read more
The Hero is great but if this is Charles Maddox's first adventure and 'A Treacherous... Read more
Published 5 days ago by NathanB
4.0 out of 5 stars
Tom-All-Alone's / The Solitary House. (SPOILER ALERT)
(US title: "The Solitary House")
* SPOILER ALERT*
Three reasons to read this book:
1. The atmosphere is really intense.
2. Read more
* SPOILER ALERT*
Three reasons to read this book:
1. The atmosphere is really intense.
2. Read more
Published 5 days ago by h.j.moreton
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pastiche with heart
I loved this book
Ok, a bit more detail than that is probably needed but this is a terrific read. Read more
Ok, a bit more detail than that is probably needed but this is a terrific read. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Plucked Highbrow
5.0 out of 5 stars
very exxciting
An excellent thriller. A very interesting melange of nineteenth century style - bringing in various well known real and literary figures. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Livia
3.0 out of 5 stars
Well written but I found it difficult to engage with
Whilst this is well written with very evocative descriptions of Dickensian London, I found the style difficult to engage with and often had to re read bits to remind me where I had... Read more
Published 4 months ago by CaseyMae
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best Victorian era Book
Bleak House is my favourite Charles Dickens story, but when I started reading Tom-All-Alone's I deliberately put that to one side, so that I could read it with a clear head.. Read more
Published 4 months ago by LynnsWaffles
2.0 out of 5 stars
why read this when you could read bleak house?
I read a lot of historical fiction and I don't get this one! A very weakened version of Bleak House (which is brilliant) ;' characters are stripped of their richness and prose... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Acad
4.0 out of 5 stars
SENSORY JOURNEY
TOM ALL ALONE'S by Lynn Shepherd conjures up so many vivid images that it is like taking trip back in time to Victorian England ala H.G. Wells time machine. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Red Rock Bookworm
1.0 out of 5 stars
What the Dickens!
The best thing I can say about this book is that it caused me to re-read Bleak House, what a marvellous book that is! Read more
Published 4 months ago by Melchior of Bunn
3.0 out of 5 stars
Lonely Tom
Not a bad read but nothing special. There are some much better historicals about,
Doesn't rate with Sansom or Parris.j
Doesn't rate with Sansom or Parris.j
Published 5 months ago by Mr Michael J Culham
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