Reviews with content warning for Police brutality - Shrines of Gaiety

A Glorious Crime Caper

Set in the ceady under world of 1920s Soho night life. Missing girls., bent coppers, straight coppers, an assortment of loveable rouges with some plain old rouges thrown in. Oh and did I mention and did I mention a fiesty librarian on the lookout for adventure. All woven together in a beautifully crafted narrative.

This is the definition of Darkly Comic and is easily one of my favourite books of the year so far. I would like to particularly recommend the audiobook as the narrator does the humour in this novel an incredible amount of justice.

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bedtimesandbooks's review

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dark hopeful mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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madamelacy's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

It took me a while to get into this book. It felt like the story didn’t really get going until halfway through, but maybe I read the first half in too many sittings. Once it got going it was a really interesting plot with some good twists along the way.

The settings of the London nightclubs in the 1920s were interesting as they’re not something I knew anything about.

The story weaves together gangsters, poverty, murders, police corruption and complicated relationships.

I liked that there were several strong female characters who were controlling their own destinies, even if I didn’t especially like their life choices.

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nialiversuch's review

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dark emotional funny informative mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

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znvisser's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

This was fun! Lots going on, many characters including intelligent dogs (love it), and then women and girls everywhere following their dreams and outsmarting men. Early on my brain made a Peaky Blinders comparison and honestly, I held on to it because it helped me with the setting as I don't recall having read a lot of fiction from this time period before. I was however a bit disappointed by Niven's character, who was introduced interestingly (e.g. as a relative outsider to his family, coming back from the war) but his character fell flat fast and these promises from the start didn't really get thoroughly explored. I do understand it's hard to have so many characters and have them all be layered and pronounced, but the author succeeded in this far better for the women (and policemen?) in this story. However, I am not going to complain any more about that, because we all know there are more than enough books out there where women are prone to this fate. I loved how the author used perspective changes and timelines to play with the reader's perspective. In part due to it, the plot wasn't as mysterious as the setting, with many easter eggs and predictable turns and events

, and a slightly unsurprising moral along the lines of "the bad people are not as bad as they seem, and certainly not as bad as the people who are supposed or appear to be doing better"

. But to me there was some playfulness to the predictability and I rather enjoyed it, moreover because I am not particularly looking to be misled in my reading. Anyway - fun! Might pick up some more historical fiction from this time period.

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zosiablue's review

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adventurous dark emotional funny sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

One of those books that felt like I was watching real life casually unfold. Just effortless rolling from scene to scene as if it was happening in real time. I don't know how Kate Atkinson does it. And at first, I read this as just a moment in time without a driving point - a look into 1920s gangster cocktail club glitterati London. But then she pulled a Six Feet Under finale at the end and I realized the Moment in Time WAS the point. These wild things happen and then they're just history. So tart in the moment and then gone. The algia in nostalgia. Dang.

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