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A review by bookish_arcadia
London Calling by Sara Sheridan
2.0
I received a free, advance copy of this work from Kensington Books and Netgalley in return for an honest review.
I do love a period mystery, with all the tropes of the eccentric amateur detective but Mirabelle Bevan just does not work for me. Unfortunately the main problem is the quality of the writing, it is very sophmoric and is completely overloaded with unnecessary descriptive detail and tortured syntax.
The 1950s setting would have been better served if Sheridan had focused less on irrelevant period props and more on catching jarringly out-of-place turns off phrase and clarifying historical details.
The characters were really just cyphers lifted from other work in the genre. More than once I was reminded of Philip Pullman's Sally Lockhart stories, but the comparison was not favorable. The plot was increasingly ridiculous and the motivation behind the political machinations was tacked crudely and unnecessarily to end, as if these elements had not been properly prepared until it was too late.
With a dash of humour or a more tongue-in-cheek tone it might have been and enjoyable, if very silly, adventure but it wants to be taken far more seriously than it deserves. In the end it reads like a fond homage to the Golden Age classics of Christie, Sayers and Marsh and nothing about the writing has the strength lift it beyond enthusiastic but flawed pastiche.
I do love a period mystery, with all the tropes of the eccentric amateur detective but Mirabelle Bevan just does not work for me. Unfortunately the main problem is the quality of the writing, it is very sophmoric and is completely overloaded with unnecessary descriptive detail and tortured syntax.
The 1950s setting would have been better served if Sheridan had focused less on irrelevant period props and more on catching jarringly out-of-place turns off phrase and clarifying historical details.
The characters were really just cyphers lifted from other work in the genre. More than once I was reminded of Philip Pullman's Sally Lockhart stories, but the comparison was not favorable. The plot was increasingly ridiculous and the motivation behind the political machinations was tacked crudely and unnecessarily to end, as if these elements had not been properly prepared until it was too late.
With a dash of humour or a more tongue-in-cheek tone it might have been and enjoyable, if very silly, adventure but it wants to be taken far more seriously than it deserves. In the end it reads like a fond homage to the Golden Age classics of Christie, Sayers and Marsh and nothing about the writing has the strength lift it beyond enthusiastic but flawed pastiche.