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3.0 AVERAGE
3.0 AVERAGE
4.5 stars
I really enjoyed this book.
I picked it up at library based mostly on the cover and a little bit on the blurb. On getting it home I realised I'd read [a:Andrew Martin|35691|Andrew Martin|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1343170976p2/35691.jpg] before, namely [b:The Necropolis Railway|228912|The Necropolis Railway (Jim Stringer, #1)|Andrew Martin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328874880s/228912.jpg|1351212] and I became a bit wary because my memory was I didn't enjoy it that much. (In fact I gave it 7/10 so it can't have been that bad)
So this book is set in 18th century York and London. It starts with a young man, Fletcher Rigge, in debtors prison for debts he largely inherited from his father. However a Captain Harvey, son of a recently murdered silhouettist, pays the debt and arranges for him to be released for one month on the condition he solves his father's murder.
The book is told as a series of documents collected, supposedly, by a lawyer writing to the York Chief Magistrate. So it's letters, Rigge's diary, transcripts of interviews and so on. As a structural device I had no problem with this, although my one complaint would be that the letters were printed in italics and I found that difficult to read for pages at a time. A minor point though.
I think this book works on at least three levels. First it is a murder mystery. Not being a huge connoisseur of these I can say that the mystery here worked pretty well. I was intrigued and tried to figure out who had done what to whom and why.
Secondly it was a historical novel set in a time and place I don't know much about. It's set in 1798/99 in York (mostly). Apart from a little [a:Jane Austen|1265|Jane Austen|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1380085320p2/1265.jpg] I've not read much from that period and Austen's novels seem to be mostly set in big houses in the country where as this is resolutely in cities. Indeed country v city is a theme in the book as well as a conflict in the main character's mind.
So the descriptions of the period were very evocative and whilst I'm not fit to judge the details were specific enough to feel real.
Thirdly I found the characters engaging. Not so much Rigge, who is mostly just a straight up hero and a bit of an enigma, but many of the others, including the various suspects, are very colourful. Also when the setting allows, some of the dialogue has a little of Austen's wit and playfulness. There's some entertaining flirting going on.
The ending is satisfying and wraps up the mystery but hints a the possibility of further book(s). Which I would certainly read.
I really enjoyed this book.
I picked it up at library based mostly on the cover and a little bit on the blurb. On getting it home I realised I'd read [a:Andrew Martin|35691|Andrew Martin|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1343170976p2/35691.jpg] before, namely [b:The Necropolis Railway|228912|The Necropolis Railway (Jim Stringer, #1)|Andrew Martin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328874880s/228912.jpg|1351212] and I became a bit wary because my memory was I didn't enjoy it that much. (In fact I gave it 7/10 so it can't have been that bad)
So this book is set in 18th century York and London. It starts with a young man, Fletcher Rigge, in debtors prison for debts he largely inherited from his father. However a Captain Harvey, son of a recently murdered silhouettist, pays the debt and arranges for him to be released for one month on the condition he solves his father's murder.
The book is told as a series of documents collected, supposedly, by a lawyer writing to the York Chief Magistrate. So it's letters, Rigge's diary, transcripts of interviews and so on. As a structural device I had no problem with this, although my one complaint would be that the letters were printed in italics and I found that difficult to read for pages at a time. A minor point though.
I think this book works on at least three levels. First it is a murder mystery. Not being a huge connoisseur of these I can say that the mystery here worked pretty well. I was intrigued and tried to figure out who had done what to whom and why.
Secondly it was a historical novel set in a time and place I don't know much about. It's set in 1798/99 in York (mostly). Apart from a little [a:Jane Austen|1265|Jane Austen|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1380085320p2/1265.jpg] I've not read much from that period and Austen's novels seem to be mostly set in big houses in the country where as this is resolutely in cities. Indeed country v city is a theme in the book as well as a conflict in the main character's mind.
So the descriptions of the period were very evocative and whilst I'm not fit to judge the details were specific enough to feel real.
Thirdly I found the characters engaging. Not so much Rigge, who is mostly just a straight up hero and a bit of an enigma, but many of the others, including the various suspects, are very colourful. Also when the setting allows, some of the dialogue has a little of Austen's wit and playfulness. There's some entertaining flirting going on.
The ending is satisfying and wraps up the mystery but hints a the possibility of further book(s). Which I would certainly read.
crime mystery novel based in late 18th century York where an artist is murder and the young gentleman in the debtors gaol is employed to find the murderer in exchange for his debts to be paid off. enjoyed the novel but still feel that the stringers series are better though
I really thought I would like this but after a couple of attempts I gave up - there was nothing in it that I enjoyed.
A historical novel entirely told in letters, diary snippets etc. MC is a young man who's lost his family estate and been arrested for debt, but is freed by the son of a murdered man if he investigates his father's death.
Mph. It's well written (doesn't try for a particularly Georgian feel to the rhythms or vocab) with lots of nice historical detail. I didn't really feel I got to know/care about the MC particularly, even though about half the book is his diary, which became problematic as the plot shifted towards his personal story arc separate to the murder narrative. (Also the epistolary form means that the other writers all spend a lot of time talking about how handsome, interesting, appealing, wronged etc the MC is, which I always find rather odd.)
Notable that all the women were on a spectrum of flaws (unfair, unreliable, unfaithful, unpleasant) and oh hey is that sole gay characterthe villain , why of *course*.
The endingis a twist because surprise! we're not really solving the murder mystery, but in fact the mystery of why the dead man's son wanted it investigated. This is a great idea, but it's really obvious from early on because the book just doesn't care about the murder. I think we needed someone, anyone in the book to give a damn about the murdered guy, and they don't. Nobody cares he's dead, nobody cares who did it including the MC or the reader, we don't have any sense of him as a person, and the solution to his death is a total anticlimax, tossed away in a paragraph or so. All of which really undercuts the twist because it's so obvious there's something else coming.
I did finish it, which is something, but it left me unmoved. Not a success for me.
Mph. It's well written (doesn't try for a particularly Georgian feel to the rhythms or vocab) with lots of nice historical detail. I didn't really feel I got to know/care about the MC particularly, even though about half the book is his diary, which became problematic as the plot shifted towards his personal story arc separate to the murder narrative. (Also the epistolary form means that the other writers all spend a lot of time talking about how handsome, interesting, appealing, wronged etc the MC is, which I always find rather odd.)
Notable that all the women were on a spectrum of flaws (unfair, unreliable, unfaithful, unpleasant) and oh hey is that sole gay character
The ending
I did finish it, which is something, but it left me unmoved. Not a success for me.