Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.43 AVERAGE
3.43 AVERAGE
I started reading A Beautiful Blue Death, a Victorian upper-class detective novel by Charles Finch, on Thursday, and finished it today.
This has a lot of parallels with the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt mystery series, which is set in the same era. With the Pitts, Thomas is a working class policeman and his wife Charlotte is the daughter of a lord. Charlotte's background lets her move in the higher levels of society, while Thomas can work the docks and back alleys.
With this book, Lord Charles Lenox is an amateur detective with some past successes. Here, his life-long friend Lady Jane Grey asks him to look into the mysterious death of her former maid, who is now working elsewhere to be near her betrothed. Lenox uses his butler to handle the lower-class inquiries, while he works the upper crust.
The story itself has some interesting twists, but it suffers from the author's heavy-handedness in developing his large set of characters. The case in hand is not fully resolved, and we're left at the end with an overly coy setup - will Lenox try to change his friendship with Lady Jane into something more?
This is the first in a new series, and many authors (and their editors) work out the kinks in the follow-up books, once all the introductions and setting details are out of the way. I was a little disappointed in this story, but will certainly read the next one to see how things progress.
http://goption.com/2011/07/a-beautiful-blue-death/
This has a lot of parallels with the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt mystery series, which is set in the same era. With the Pitts, Thomas is a working class policeman and his wife Charlotte is the daughter of a lord. Charlotte's background lets her move in the higher levels of society, while Thomas can work the docks and back alleys.
With this book, Lord Charles Lenox is an amateur detective with some past successes. Here, his life-long friend Lady Jane Grey asks him to look into the mysterious death of her former maid, who is now working elsewhere to be near her betrothed. Lenox uses his butler to handle the lower-class inquiries, while he works the upper crust.
The story itself has some interesting twists, but it suffers from the author's heavy-handedness in developing his large set of characters. The case in hand is not fully resolved, and we're left at the end with an overly coy setup - will Lenox try to change his friendship with Lady Jane into something more?
This is the first in a new series, and many authors (and their editors) work out the kinks in the follow-up books, once all the introductions and setting details are out of the way. I was a little disappointed in this story, but will certainly read the next one to see how things progress.
http://goption.com/2011/07/a-beautiful-blue-death/
slow-paced
The first in a very promising mystery series set in late-Victorian England. Charles Lenox, a gentleman and amateur detective, endeavors to solve mysteries with the assistance of his good friend Lady Jane. He is also not unwilling to make use of those who are of a different class i.e. servants and street folks.
Though the mystery wasn't too compelling, I did enjoy the characters and their building relationship. I look forward to more in the series. I also liked the "feel" of this mystery (cozy/gentle/classic) and how the author pays tribute to Conan Doyle, Sayers, and Christie in his writing style. A pleasant read.
Though the mystery wasn't too compelling, I did enjoy the characters and their building relationship. I look forward to more in the series. I also liked the "feel" of this mystery (cozy/gentle/classic) and how the author pays tribute to Conan Doyle, Sayers, and Christie in his writing style. A pleasant read.
Typically I hate a male narrator of a mystery, but I loved Lenox. This mystery had all the hallmarks of cozy historical mysteries I love. The added Victorian dandyisms made it all the more colorful. I will definitely keep reading.
I gave up on this book in chapter 3 after realising the author had done too little research to know that Victorian servants slept in attics, not downstairs across from the kitchen!!
If you can't be bothered to do your research properly, I cannot be bothered to read your book, no matter how damn good it's supposed to be!
If you can't be bothered to do your research properly, I cannot be bothered to read your book, no matter how damn good it's supposed to be!
adventurous
lighthearted
mysterious
relaxing
medium-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
7/20. All of the top rated reviews of this book on Goodreads discuss the slew of anachronisms that made them frustrated with this book. Honestly, I don't really care about that that, but I didn't like this book anyway. First of all, it was incredibly boring. Lenox had no personality, and there were essentially no stakes in this case. It was him walking around eating food and talking to people for 325 pages. Also, this isn't the reason I disliked this book, but I would like to point out the number of times that Lenox said a woman "was smart, unlike other women," or something to that degree, and it overall had the tone of being written by someone who's trying really really hard to include strong female characters, but doesn't quite believe that women are real people.