Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Dickens got there first., 30 May 2005
By A Customer
As a bit of a Victorian 'buff' and lover of crime fiction, I looked forward to reading this novel. It got off to a cracking start with a body discovered in a Metropolitan Line train and I read on avidly to discover how the murder had been committed in such a public place. Nevertheless, this was hardly explored, I felt, nor were other aspects, such as the habits of the middle-class who liked to visit the haunts of the poor. They were known as 'slummers' but in this novel the police seemed surprised at such an activity. In fact the police were remarkably dense, which is the worst cliche of crime fiction. Cliches also abounded in the traditional view of Victorian London: the fog, the dirty Thames, the squalor,laudanum, poverty and middle class hypocrisy. It seems to me that the author, who has his own Victorian London website, is more interested in telling us about these things than creating believable characters and plot. I guessed who the murderer was pretty early on but I wouldn't have minded that, had the motivation of any of the characters held my attention. As the previous reviewer so rightly pointed out, none of the characters made us care enough about them. And like many male writers, the author can't get under the skin of women. There's a female character who should hold our sympathy but doesn't because she ends up behaving like no woman would ever behave. Too much would give away the plot, so I'll say no more. The main problem, though was viewpoint. The author kept explaining for the benefit of twenty-first century readers things that the people who lived through those times would take for granted. For example, how to stop a hackney carriage or that the streets were muddy and that crossing-sweepers only plied their trade in the smarter areas where they could expect a penny or two for their efforts. I also felt it was a bit patronising and lacking any humour. Most of us know what Victorian London was like. Dickens got there first.
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6 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Murder, intrigue and history!, 17 Feb 2005
I enjoyed this book much more than I thought I would as I'm not a big fan of 'historical' fiction, but this novel is much more than that. The Victorian age is brought startlingly to life by the author and while it is not forced on the reader like in similar books taking place in the past, it is accurate enough to create the atmosphere of the period. It is obvious from this accuracy that the author has conducted thorough research and it definitely pays off. The novel's place in the past builds the tension and atmosphere of this thriller and the dark, dingy underworld of London is an effective location for a crime novel of this sort. So why only three stars, considering I liked the book so much? Well, whilst the setting is suitably both dingy and sinister and the historical element is excellent, the story itself is less than perfect. The plot seems to meander its way around, never really building enough tension to make it either gripping or exciting. The murder itself has interest and the seediness of London's underworld is a fascinating, if gruesome topic but it is never really fully explored. Although I am fond of subtlety and prefer authors to hint at a theme rather than blatantly speak of it, I think this is one element of the novel that could have been further explored. Also the characters are one-dimensional and in all honesty we never know enough about them to care what happens to them. This is possibly the worst thing in a thriller of this sort. The whole point is that the reader roots for the protagonist, leading us to scream at the pages "NO! S/he CAN'T die! It's not fair!", again heightening the tension and excitement expected from a thriller. I never felt this way about any of these charachters, even though I tried very hard to like them. This book is a good read, I promise. It's not excellent, it's not literary genius but it's still a reasonably good book. It never really reaches its full potential and it seems to promise more than it ever delivers, but it is still a three-star book. Try it for yourself and tell me I'm wrong!
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2.0 out of 5 stars
Too simplistic, too short, 24 Mar 2009
It begins well enough in a fine old Shocking Murder! penny-dreadful style, but it never develops into what it ought to have been, nor what we expected. The characters are flimsy, the plot is predictable and there's as little sense of place generated by it as by Dick Van Dyke's cock-er-nee accent.
The final denoument is crammed hastily into a couple of pages and feels like an author who was simply bored of the whole business and wanted nothing more than to wrap it up and send it to the publisher. If the novel were twice its length, then there might be space for a little characterisation, something that's sorely lacking. The two female protagonists are sisters, yet we learn nothing of their relationship as they grew up together and their eventual crucial historical revelation is as much a surprise to them as it is to us.
It's a steamy piece of Victoriana alright, but there are so many out there far better than this - try "Necropolis Railway" for one.
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