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A review by siria
Death by Silver by Amy Griswold, Melissa Scott
3.0
A very enjoyable murder mystery set in an alternate Victorian London, where metaphysics (or magic, to you and me) is a respectable profession and Ned Mathey and his old school friend (and lover) Julian Lynes have been hired to solve the murder of Edgard Nevett. Death by Silver rollicks along amiably enough, and there were some little touches I quite liked, but the novel as a whole was lacking some indefinable spark.
The blurb mentions them having to explore London's "sodomitical demimonde", which I suppose is technically true, but it's all in about a sedate a manner as possible. I wanted a little more sense of this as a tangible world, and for a little more yearning, a little more heat, in the romance. Mathey and Lynes' relationship felt cosy more than it did a grand passion—I kept waiting for it to ignite and that never quite happened. Equally I was waiting for Miss Frost's character to be fleshed out more—as it was, she felt uncomfortably like the Competent Self-Assured Female Character who's inserted into a story to defend against charges of sexism. I wanted to see her do stuff, as opposed to being told she'd done stuff/told that she had an interesting back story.
I would definitely read more in this world, though—there's definitely a promise here that I think Scott and Griswold can build on.
The blurb mentions them having to explore London's "sodomitical demimonde", which I suppose is technically true, but it's all in about a sedate a manner as possible. I wanted a little more sense of this as a tangible world, and for a little more yearning, a little more heat, in the romance. Mathey and Lynes' relationship felt cosy more than it did a grand passion—I kept waiting for it to ignite and that never quite happened. Equally I was waiting for Miss Frost's character to be fleshed out more—as it was, she felt uncomfortably like the Competent Self-Assured Female Character who's inserted into a story to defend against charges of sexism. I wanted to see her do stuff, as opposed to being told she'd done stuff/told that she had an interesting back story.
I would definitely read more in this world, though—there's definitely a promise here that I think Scott and Griswold can build on.