Somehow this book just didn't do it for me. It's well enough written. The plot tension is good. The villains are sufficiently villainous. The main character is realistic. The time and place are well researched. So what was it that bugged me?
Well, number one reservation: the author just throws in too many well known people. Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley, Sir Richard Owen, Charles Dickens, Queen Victoria and her Prince Consort, Albert. What are the odds that an actual Victorian policeman would encounter ALL of these prominent people? Not to mention Mary Do-Not, who seems to be based on the American Typhoid Mary.
My other complaint is that the murderer just seems too 21st century. Yes, I know, the Victorian era saw Jack the Ripper and the start of our culture's fascination with the serial murderer. But this type of crime wasn't too sophisticated yet. The Chorister is like a character out of the tv show Criminal Minds and to me feels much too modern for the setting. He pursues his targets with Terminator-like persistence and has traits that the FBI would easily recognize. It just didn’t feel time appropriate to me.
This was a choice for the book club sponsored by a local bookstore and I am planning to attend my first meeting to discuss it. I truly wish that I had enjoyed it more, as I find more joy discussing books that I like than those that I'm not wild about. Ah well, c'est la vie.
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