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tasmanian_bibliophile's review
3.0
Thos who read a lot of crime/mystery fiction will recognise elements of stories and characters in this one. Still, Alastair Ransom is an intriguing hero and I'll read the sequel.
Chicago in 1893, during the great Exposition, has the eyes of the world on it and a bloodthirsty killer loose within it.
Inspector Alastair Ransom is burdened by his own past and haunted by his own demons. Still, he is determined to solve these crimes and becomes even more determined when he realizes that the killer is moving closer to him and those he cares about.
While this novel is uneven in parts, it blends some interesting characters with grittily depicted action. Ransom himself combines the strengths, flaws and angst of some of the best and most interesting detectives. I worked out who the killer was sometime before the end of the novel but by then the tension was well established and the question was when the killer would be caught.
Chicago in 1893, during the great Exposition, has the eyes of the world on it and a bloodthirsty killer loose within it.
Inspector Alastair Ransom is burdened by his own past and haunted by his own demons. Still, he is determined to solve these crimes and becomes even more determined when he realizes that the killer is moving closer to him and those he cares about.
While this novel is uneven in parts, it blends some interesting characters with grittily depicted action. Ransom himself combines the strengths, flaws and angst of some of the best and most interesting detectives. I worked out who the killer was sometime before the end of the novel but by then the tension was well established and the question was when the killer would be caught.
frater's review
1.0
This was an awful book, and I would have toss it aside by the tenth page if I hadn't required a book in this setting for a readers challenge I am participating in.
The dialog was stilted and tedious, the setting barely existent, the characterisation two-dimensional at best and the plot, worst fault of all, was boring.
I would hesitate even to call this a "mystery", as there was no mystery to it - the murderer was telegraphed long before the first third of the book was over and every piece of foreshadowing attempted was performed with all the subtlty of a sledge-hammer between the eyes. The villain may as well have been carrying about a sign in flashing lights saying "I done it."
The story was full of wordy exposition - in an ironical twist the main character is described as a man who "shows by his actions who he is not his words" in the middle of one such rambling blocks of text that serves as an alternative to actual showing the characters doing anything beyond drawn out argumentative dialog in an obvious, though unsuccessful, attempt to create some sort of chemistry between the main character and the love-interest in waiting.
Finally, for a book with so few real plot threads, it seems criminal that those few that do exist were left hanging at the end without any sort of final conclusion, no doubt in an attempt to drive curious readers to the next book in the series.
I'm not sure what is more terrible in the end - the book itself, or that fact that the acknowledgements at the end reveal that the author has written more than forty other books. One would think that repetition alone would have improved his ability.
The dialog was stilted and tedious, the setting barely existent, the characterisation two-dimensional at best and the plot, worst fault of all, was boring.
I would hesitate even to call this a "mystery", as there was no mystery to it - the murderer was telegraphed long before the first third of the book was over and every piece of foreshadowing attempted was performed with all the subtlty of a sledge-hammer between the eyes. The villain may as well have been carrying about a sign in flashing lights saying "I done it."
The story was full of wordy exposition - in an ironical twist the main character is described as a man who "shows by his actions who he is not his words" in the middle of one such rambling blocks of text that serves as an alternative to actual showing the characters doing anything beyond drawn out argumentative dialog in an obvious, though unsuccessful, attempt to create some sort of chemistry between the main character and the love-interest in waiting.
Finally, for a book with so few real plot threads, it seems criminal that those few that do exist were left hanging at the end without any sort of final conclusion, no doubt in an attempt to drive curious readers to the next book in the series.
I'm not sure what is more terrible in the end - the book itself, or that fact that the acknowledgements at the end reveal that the author has written more than forty other books. One would think that repetition alone would have improved his ability.
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