This is the first book in a
series that the author entitles A Murder
of Crows. It spans the middle of the nineteenth century, from a village in
England to St John in New Brunswick, Canada.
The story opens with Michael
McLaughlin, at thirty-one years of age a Chief Inspector with Scotland Yard, in
St John on a fateful day. On June 20 1877, much of St John was burned down.
Michael is there in pursuit of a criminal called Seth. He has personal reasons
for pursuing Seth, as becomes apparent in the tale that follows.
The author takes us back through
time to explain how Michael arrived at this point. She does so through several
steps, and I enjoyed this process. I did think at one point that she took this
process a little too far when she went back to tell the story of Michael’s
father Peter’s best man at his wedding, Jonathan, and even back to Peter’s
father and uncle. In the end, however I thought she handled this quite well.
When she occasionally hopped from one time period to another, I did not find
myself disoriented for more than an instant. She does not return the reader to
the ‘present’ (St John, 1877) until the final chapters.
The back stories are interesting
and complex, as are the characters which inhabit them. With the exception of
Seth, each of the characters has a good and bad side. The darkness of Seth is
perhaps overdone in contrast. Apart from the obvious fact that we know Michael
will survive at least until 1877, the fate of many other characters is less
certain, and I was sometimes surprised—in a positive way—that the author chose
to kill off who she did.
Three things initially pleased
me about the book. First, the story is not told in a straightforward linear
fashion. Second the characters are mostly complex, even those who appear only
briefly. And third, the writing is good, tinged with a hint of nineteenth century
formality, but not overburdened with the pomposity and verbosity that some
people mistake for this style.
Most of the story is told at
quite a leisurely pace which is by no means dull or boring, but when the
narrative returns to the ‘present’, the pace picks up. This in itself is not a
bad thing, but it becomes somewhat chaotic at times and more difficult to
follow. The fact that Michael pursues his own personal agenda while the city
burns around him is difficult to understand and accept. It’s also difficult to
understand how Seth comes from being a squire in a small village to... Well, I
shouldn’t give too much away. Clearly there is more back story to be told, but
I did find this discontinuity disconcerting. The story at this point has an
entirely different ‘feel’ to that which it had earlier. It was not easy to see
Seth as the same man.
On the more technical side, one
anachronism jumped out at me: the mention, in 1877, of Sherlock Holmes, who
made his first appearance in 1887. Others might detect additional anachronisms
which escaped me. For about two thirds of the book there were very few typos,
but these seemed to increase after this point. At the very least the author
might want to correct ‘fish mongrels’ to ‘fish mongers’.
I did quite enjoy this, but more
during the back story than in the ‘present’ of 1877. I was also disappointed
that the story reached no resolution here. I realise this is part of a series,
but it would have been nice to see some ‘endings’ here, while pointing ahead to
things yet to come. Instead, the author deliberately creates some ‘cliff hangers’
during the last few pages. I just find this annoying.
All in all, I think this is
worth 3.5 stars.
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