Helpful Score: 1
I was really surprised. This is a great first book! Fast paced, gripping and full of history, whether all factual or not. It is has everything a great read requires. No wonder it was a national best seller!
I really enjoyed this first novel by Alex Grecian whose work before this has always been in graphic novels. The book starts out with a bang, and ends with everything tied up very neatly. Extremely satisfying. The only odd thing I found was that it almost seems to have been written by two people. Starting out it's very serious and full of the history of London back in the 1800s. About midway through though, there is a very clear shift in style. The story becomes a bit pat, easy to track what's going to happen next. Almost formulaic. I can't say that I didn't enjoy it however. I read it eagerly and felt good about every bit of explanation to the very last. I believe that somewhere along the way the author realized this would make a great series, and shifted the plot accordingly. Without the shift in style, I would have given it a five star rating. But four star isn't bad. I'm looking forward to the next one in this beginning series.
I was really unimpressed with this book. It isn't a mystery, since the killer is revealed very early on. It doesn't really qualify as a thriller because, well, it's not thrilling in the least. A couple of the characters are mildly interesting, but it isn't enough to carry the book. There are a lot of cliches (the wife's mysterious "illness" and the brilliant, forward-thinking doctor who comes up with the idea of using fingerprints to solve the crime) (and then explains it in excruciating detail over and over again). The characters make ridiculous decisions (like splitting up when they've just been told not to, or throwing away evidence on a whim). There are too many POV shifts, too many subplots that go nowhere, and too many flashbacks that serve no purpose whatsoever. By the time I got to the last hundred pages, I was disgusted and annoyed. I only finished because it seemed a shame to stop after slogging through the previous 300+ pages. (And although I'm not a stickler for historical accuracy, anybody who is will undoubtedly be annoyed by the many inaccuracies in Victorian London.) Overall, I wouldn't recommend this book.
This is the first book in the London Murder Squad series.
I love historical fiction, and Victorian-era London is one of my favorite settings for a good murder mystery. For me, nothing is worse than reading a poorly written book set in this time period. Fortunately, Alex Grecian's debut novel was not a disappointment. The plot was interesting, the characters had depth, and the atmosphere of the times was very well described.
With that said, I would still rate this as a slightly above average book. It was very entertaining, but not as engrossing as I would have preferred. The mystery was good but it wasn't as complicated as some of the characters made it out to be, and for me that was distracting. However, I thought that the character development and the growth of those relationships was very well done, and I could easily see these characters continuing to grow in the coming novels.
In all, this was a book worth reading and it is one that I would easily recommend to any fan of historical fiction, especially to people like me who are fascinated by the early days of police forensics in Jack the Ripper London.
I love historical fiction, and Victorian-era London is one of my favorite settings for a good murder mystery. For me, nothing is worse than reading a poorly written book set in this time period. Fortunately, Alex Grecian's debut novel was not a disappointment. The plot was interesting, the characters had depth, and the atmosphere of the times was very well described.
With that said, I would still rate this as a slightly above average book. It was very entertaining, but not as engrossing as I would have preferred. The mystery was good but it wasn't as complicated as some of the characters made it out to be, and for me that was distracting. However, I thought that the character development and the growth of those relationships was very well done, and I could easily see these characters continuing to grow in the coming novels.
In all, this was a book worth reading and it is one that I would easily recommend to any fan of historical fiction, especially to people like me who are fascinated by the early days of police forensics in Jack the Ripper London.
Absolutely FANTASTIC Victorian read! I was captivated the whole time. Read like a movie. This is deff one to add to your reading schedule. If your into Victorian stories, and if you love a good detective novel with the streets of London and all its cobblestone glory. This is for you!
