Book Review: Victorian Detective Thriller Noir

 The Nightingale Affair, by Tim Mason (Algonquin)

A deliciously twisty Victorian detective thriller focusing on a serial killer with a sinister signature targeting Florence Nightingale and her valiant nurses, first in 1855 Crimea (“the Beast of the Crimean”) and twelve years later in London.  Nightingale has dedicated her life to improving the wretched conditions in the British military hospitals in Turkey, despite fierce objections from the male doctors around her. When young women start turning up dead, their mouths sewn shut with embroidered fabric roses, Inspector Charles Field (the real-life inspiration for Charles Dickens’s Inspector Bucket in Bleak House) is dispatched from England to Turkey’s famous Barrack Hospital to find the killer. The suspects abound: doctors, military men, journalists, and others, most of whom would gladly see Nightingale and her uppity women packed back to London. The death of the prime suspect closes the case.

In the second timeline, the killings have begun again just as a movement to enfranchise more voters—men for now but women in the future--is getting underway. As Field gets drawn into the current investigation, he wonders if he’d gotten the wrong suspect back in Crimea or are the new killings the work of a demented copycat.

Along the way, Field encounters real figures of the day, from Benjamin Disraeli and John Stuart Mill to novelist Wilkie Collins and, of course, Florence Nightingale herself.

I found The Nightingale Affair to be a fast, absorbing read. The story moves swiftly from present to past, past to present, with characters I cared about, plot twists, chases, and intrigue.

Trigger warning for gore and misogyny-related violence.

Short Book Reviews: Liszt and the Whitechapel Murders

Music Macabre, by Sarah Rayne (Severn House)

This thriller, set in parallel time lines in modern and Victorian-era London, weaves together the legend of the serial killer, Jack the Ripper, and the music of Franz Liszt. In today’s time, writer Phineas Fox is researching his next project, a scholarly work on the life of Liszt, when he comes across a reference to “Liszten for the Killer,” a song that the women of Whitechapel used as an alarm signal.

The Victorian story line includes the notorious music hall dancer, Scaramel, and the poor girl, Dairy, whom she befriends. As the Ripper’s attacks grow nearer, Daisy and her younger brother barely escape his knives. Scaramel devises a scheme to use a melody composed by Liszt’s, as distinctive as it is haunting, as a way to rapidly spread word of his approach. Meanwhile, Phineas’s researches bring him to the physical location of the older story’s events. Many of the same buildings are still in existence, including the pub where Scaramel and her group met; in gaining access to the documents stored in the basement, he encounters the new owner, who has a secret family history and obsession of her own.

Music Macabre added something quite new and fresh for me to the usual tales of Jack the Ripper. Initially my curiosity was piqued by the use of Liszt’s music as a plot element. That in itself set the book apart (and as an adult piano student, I have Opinions about Liszt’s compositions for a pianist with relatively small hands). Both story lines drew me in, and as the parallel tales progressed, echoing and crossing one another, the tension rocketed up. The thriller elements were handled with seeming effortlessness, allowing deeper nuances to emerge. Sympathetic characters, a burgeoning sense of doom, and unexpected twists added to the reading enjoyment.

Now, where’s that playlist?

Short Book Reviews: Bram Stoker and the Raiders of Ancient Egypt

The Night Crossing, by Robert Masello (47North)

Loosely falling into the category of historical urban fantasy, this delicious tale places Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, center-stage. Literally, since Stoker ran the theater that featured Henry Irving, the first actor to be knighted. And figuratively, since this is essentially Bram’s adventure. In the 19th Century, “Egyptomania,” enthusiasm for all things ancient Egyptian, swept Western Europe. Ordinary travelers as well as serious scholars pillaged archaeological sites looking for treasure and curiosities, which they of course brought back to England. Never mind the damage done by amateurs to the archaeological sites. To be sure, some artifacts ended up with serious collectors who cared about provenance and preservation. Accounts relate “mummy unwrapping parties.” People apparently considered a fine way to pass an evening with port wine and removing the coverings of a mummy, searching for small articles folded in the bandages, which were then distributed as trinkets. (Some scholars now dispute these accounts, although not those of scholars holding similar public events.)

In the world of urban historical fantasy, Egyptian burial practices involve supernatural elements, including the ability to prolong life and reanimate the dead. Bram, searching for a high-concept premise to launch his literary career from obscurity into best-seller territory, takes notice when he runs afoul of a brother and sister duo who are using Egyptian magic to do just that.

Enter (Minerva) Mina Harcourt, intrepid Anglo-Romany adventurer, her century’s female Indiana Jones. While investigating the monumentally huge Carpathian sphinx (there really is such a thing), she comes into possession of a mysterious golden box (see the cover image). Enter also Lucinda Watts, a timid young woman who works in a match factory (owned by the brother of the above-referenced nefarious pair), suffers from phossy jaw (formally known as phosphorus necrosis of the jaw, from the white phosphorus used in match manufacture) and is the mother of an illegitimate son (the brother being a rapist, as well) who dies when the evil duo suck out his soul. (That’s an approximate summation of the process, which is actually more than a bit more complex.)

Before long, Bram and Mina are on the hunt not only for the Egyptian immortality thieves but the origin of her golden box and the shadows that mysterious escape from it. The mash-up of historical setting and real personages, the fictional inspirations for Stoker’s Dracula, and the dramatic twists and turns make this a delicious and occasionally shiver-producing thriller. The narrative style, rich in detail, atmosphere, and well-drawn personalities, kept me turning pages even through the parts of slower action. The variation in pace allowed for context, nuance, and emotional resonance, making The Night Crossing more than just a “fun read.” I’ll be on the lookout for more from this sensitive, skillful writer.

The usual disclaimer: I received a review copy of this book, but no one bribed me to say anything about it.

Short Book Reviews: A New Take on Dorian Gray

Creatures of Will and Temper, by Molly Tanzer, (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), 2017.

Part Victorian Gothic, part sword-swashing adventure, part witchcraft and part romance, this is a thoroughly delightful tale. With a nod here and there to Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, the story concerns two sisters on a visit with their uncle in London. The older sister, Evadne Gray, loves fencing and the neighbor youth, but the latter has left her heart-broken by announcing his engagement to another. She’s in London as a diversion from her sorrow and also as chaperone for her vivacious, rebellious, artistic younger sister, Dorina Gray. Soon they’ve gone their own ways,  Dorina to the salon of Lady Henrietta Wotton and Evadne to study at a fencing academy. But matters are not all they seem, for in this world of Victorian high society, demons bargain with their human hosts in pacts ranging from benign to bloody.

This was my introduction to the work of Molly Tanzer but it won’t be my last. Besides the supernatural and mysterious, the depiction of a world of privilege and heartache, the story delves with sensitivity and insight into human relationships, thus setting it apart.

Short Book Reviews: A Norfolk Shrieking Pit Mystery

The Curious Affair of the Witch at Wayside Cross (From the Casebooks of Jesperson & Lane) by Lisa Tuttle (Random House Hydra).

 In this second adventure of the intrepid Victorian private detectives Jasper Jesperson and Miss Lane. While the daring duo evoke shades of Holmes and Watson with a touch of the supernatural here and there, they are anything put pale imitations. 

While a mysterious murder sets them off on this latest adventure to Norfolk, the story is as much about the denizens coming to terms with an uneasy crossroads between the modern, scientific future and the folkloric, magical past. When a new client falls dead on their doorstep, a young man in apparent health whose heart has given out, the sleuths follow clues to Norfolk, where the victim’s close friend has established a society dedicated to reviving the “ancient religion” of Britain. 

A kidnapped baby, accusations of witchcraft, cunning men and wisewomen steeped in the lore of plants that can cure – or kill – and a tragic love affair lead Jesperson and Lane down a twisted path, past the “shrieking pits” and back to London, through greenhouses filled with exotic, poisonous plants, and to a clergyman’s parlor. Lively, witty, and often unexpected, these stories are a true delight. 

I especially like the deft way the author treads the line between fantasy and reality in a way that heightens the emotional stakes and vividness of the tale.