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myriadreads's review against another edition
5.0
Very, very creepy. So, of course I stayed up until 1 a.m. to finish it off. :p
richard_morrow's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-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
4.0
Inspector Day, Sergeant Hammersmith and the Murder Squad returns for another adventure. In the exposition, there is a mass prison escape which requires all of the Scotland Yard’s best officers to protect the people of London. Through the character of Jack, Grecian has portrayed a sadistic and evil figure who comes across like a Victorian version of The Joker. Inspector Day retains his morals in the face of extreme danger and won’t waver from the line of justice. The final act is bloody and brutal with all the protagonists being faced with some form of peril. By the end, this feels like a bit of a bridge novel to set up for bigger and wilder adventures of the Murder Squad.
duparker's review against another edition
2.0
2.5 Stars. I've liked this series because it had a strong detective element. There are thrilling aspects, but there was actual mystery to solve. Not so much here. That really knocks the book down, though it clearly sets up the next book(s) to be more detective based (I hope).
livres_de_bloss's review against another edition
3.0
3.5
A fast-paced, easy to read, entertaining story.
A fast-paced, easy to read, entertaining story.
aoosterwyk's review against another edition
4.0
This Alex Grecian guy sure can write! He gets right inside his characters' minds and lets us know what they're thinking. Not too comfortable when his characters are serial murderers of the most evil kind. Now that I think of it, this only occurs with the male characters. His women seem kind of ineffective but maybe they're just coping with Victorian restrictions.
Anyway, the plots are good and London settings make me wish I were there.
Anyway, the plots are good and London settings make me wish I were there.
cbendixe's review against another edition
3.0
Inspector Walter Day of Scotland Yard, a lead detective in the newly created Murder Squad at the Yard in Victorian London, sure gets himself in a lot of scrapes. This third book in the Murder Squad series is bloodier than the prior two, and spends more pages inside the head of Jack the Ripper than I would like...but I was compelled to know what would become of Inspector Day and his trusty (and handsome) sidekick Sergeant Hammersmith. I just couldn't help myself.
colorfulleo92's review against another edition
2.0
Even though I finished it less then a day ago I don't remember much of anything of it witch is a shame as it sounded exciting and its includes Jack the ripper
cpalisa's review against another edition
3.0
This is one of my new favorite series and I was excited for this 3rd book. I liked it (3.5 stars) but didn't LOVE it. I still love the author and the characters...and the setting (Victorian era London), but this one lacked (for me) the interplay between the characters that made the first two so fun to read. This one also seemed to be a little more gruesome than the others (given that Jack the Ripper is a main character it is to be expected, I suppose). It will take a long time for me to forget "Tasty, salty eyeballs." I'll definitely keep reading these books but I'm hoping that I'll like the next one a little better, though, given how this one ends I'm not sure I'll like the next storyline. We'll see!
liedora's review against another edition
2.0
I thought this was going to be a gripping historical police procedure, but the only thing gripping about it were my hands on the cover to stop me throwing across the room unfinished. Yes, I was disappointed in this, and have read far better thriller/mysteries from Authors who are releasing their works to the reading public for the first time. This really isn’t one book as there is the main story that centres around the Scotland Yard Murder Squad shortly after the Ripper killings, and then there is the secondary, and in my mind much more enjoyable story, about the criminals the squad are pursuing.
The main character was not at all likeable, and in fact came across as a bit of a wimp at times. The Author apparently wanted him to appear as a stalwart of Scotland Yard but in the end he appeared to be nothing more than a self righteous man. He was very much in awe of his mentor, even though this man had left the force under a cloud, and deferred to him at every turn even when he had made it clear it was not the right thing to do. His indecisiveness was definitely at odds to the character I had expected when embarking on this book. On the flip side, I found his ‘sidekick’ to be a lot more interesting and likeable, and found myself wanting to read more about him than his Inspector. He was full of energy and stuck to a single course once his mind was made up, even if this meant going against the wishes of his superiors; the Author gifted this character will the kind of mind I had expected in the main protagonist and, rather than it being annoying to find in a secondary player, I found it one of two things that kept me reading to the end. As to the villains their story made the hair on the back of my neck stand up in places. Through a great deal of imagination and maybe some psychological research, the Author was able to bring these criminals to life in all their shocking and violent glory, while at the same time showing that you can never truly spot evil when it walks among us. It was the tale of the criminals that produced the second reason I kept reading.
From an historical point of view there was obviously a great deal of research done into the time period in which the novel is set, although at times the descriptiveness of locations did have a tendency to take over the page, and pull my attention away from what was actually happening. I’m not sure if it is just me, and there may be readers out there who enjoy this, but I do like sentences in a novel to be more than a few words long, and flow in a manner that does not make me feel as if I were on a tiny boat on a choppy see. Not all the sentences were written in this way, and it was a relief to come across those that had a nice flow and rhythm to them; only to have this taken away shortly after and be back in my storm tossed boat.
I now know this is the third book in the Murder Squad series, but to be quite honest that doesn’t really matter to me as I doubt that I will read anymore by this Author. I’m hesitant in recommending this book to anyone, but if you do like a police procedural mixed in with some history you might want to take a look at this book.
Originally reviewed on: http://catesbooknuthut.com/2014/07/11/review-the-devils-workshop-the-murder-squad-3-alex-grecian/
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
The main character was not at all likeable, and in fact came across as a bit of a wimp at times. The Author apparently wanted him to appear as a stalwart of Scotland Yard but in the end he appeared to be nothing more than a self righteous man. He was very much in awe of his mentor, even though this man had left the force under a cloud, and deferred to him at every turn even when he had made it clear it was not the right thing to do. His indecisiveness was definitely at odds to the character I had expected when embarking on this book. On the flip side, I found his ‘sidekick’ to be a lot more interesting and likeable, and found myself wanting to read more about him than his Inspector. He was full of energy and stuck to a single course once his mind was made up, even if this meant going against the wishes of his superiors; the Author gifted this character will the kind of mind I had expected in the main protagonist and, rather than it being annoying to find in a secondary player, I found it one of two things that kept me reading to the end. As to the villains their story made the hair on the back of my neck stand up in places. Through a great deal of imagination and maybe some psychological research, the Author was able to bring these criminals to life in all their shocking and violent glory, while at the same time showing that you can never truly spot evil when it walks among us. It was the tale of the criminals that produced the second reason I kept reading.
From an historical point of view there was obviously a great deal of research done into the time period in which the novel is set, although at times the descriptiveness of locations did have a tendency to take over the page, and pull my attention away from what was actually happening. I’m not sure if it is just me, and there may be readers out there who enjoy this, but I do like sentences in a novel to be more than a few words long, and flow in a manner that does not make me feel as if I were on a tiny boat on a choppy see. Not all the sentences were written in this way, and it was a relief to come across those that had a nice flow and rhythm to them; only to have this taken away shortly after and be back in my storm tossed boat.
I now know this is the third book in the Murder Squad series, but to be quite honest that doesn’t really matter to me as I doubt that I will read anymore by this Author. I’m hesitant in recommending this book to anyone, but if you do like a police procedural mixed in with some history you might want to take a look at this book.
Originally reviewed on: http://catesbooknuthut.com/2014/07/11/review-the-devils-workshop-the-murder-squad-3-alex-grecian/
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
fluffyturtle's review
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75