The author is quite accomplished and I enjoyed the attention to historical detail. There were a number of small details (such as 'pigging') which were written into the narrative without unusual comment or fanfare. I appreciated these small atmospheric additions. Obviously it's a historical murder mystery and not an academic treatise. People looking for actual history and not a well written historical mystery will likely be disappointed. On the other hand, the mystery is well crafted and enjoyable.
The language is very clean and there isn't a lot of direct or graphic violence. There was a graphic description of strychnine poisoning which was unappealing to me but was used effectively to drive the narrative ahead.
I had some trouble keeping some of the secondary characters straight, but that was due mostly to the fact that this book was my morning commute read and thus read in several short sessions. I did not ever find my interest in the plot or the mystery waning whilst I was reading.
All in all a good historical murder mystery, heavy on the history. There was a nice afterword included also with some nice explanatory historical reference notes by the author.
Enjoyable. Three and a half stars, rounded up for the great writing.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes
No comments:
Post a Comment