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Title: The Fiend in Human : A Novel by John MacLachlan Gray ISBN: 0-312-28284-2 Publisher: St. Martin's Minotaur Pub. Date: 24 September, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (3 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Out Aliens the Alienist
Comment: What's that? You wish to book a tour of Victorian London? With apologies to Mr. Wells I am afraid I do not have a time machine. However I have the next best thing, this novel by Gray. John MacLachlan Gray will guide you to the Falcon employer of correspondant Edmund Whitty, a sometimes down on his luck opium eater investigating the murders of "fallen women" on behalf of the Falcon. The prime suspect William Ryan dubbed The fiend in human form, Chokee Bill, by Whitty claims innocence. Gray during the ongoing drama will lead you to rat fights and public houses, guiding you through the gas lit streets of London circa 1852.
The above is an inadequate attempt to provide a glimmer of the atmosphere that permeates this thriller, much like the smoggy streets I almost felt I was walking as I read this incredible tale. Carr's The Alienist was proclaimed by many as an astute historical thriller, upon which many have tried to emulate. Yet the scenery, and dialogue in this story even sets the tension through which the narrative moves in THE FIEND IN HUMAN in a time and place that is almost plausible that Gray actually visited such is his powers of story telling.
The characters are consitent with the setting and I could envision myself looking over the shoulders of Dorcas and Phoebe(two supporting characters) as they pickpocketed the unwary to help support their family in the slums.
Have I praised this book enough yet? Hardly all I can say again is reading this is the closest anyone can come to a virtual tour of Victorian London until technology provides an alternative to the literary skills of Gray.
Rating: 5
Summary: Sensational!
Comment: Victorian London is abuzz with news of a serial killer in their midst. That buzz is fed by profit-driven newspaper columnists who each strive for the most sensational story.
Edmund Whitty is one such columnist for The Falcon. He is also a drunken lout with steep gambling debts that he can't seem to pay. One evening he is beaten severely as he leaves his favorite drinking place. He is subsequently spirited to the deepest underbelly of Victorian London society to be confronted by a man whom Whitty has recently defamed in a recent newspaper column.
Whitty's world turns upside down and author John MacLachlan Gray's excellent novel takes off. I don't know that I would, like the book's cover, classify this book as a thriller. This is a suspense novel of the first rate. But it is not a typical thriller where action overrides reason in forwarding it's plot.
Rather, Gray has written a fantastic story of crime, injustice and retribution centered around less-than-regal Victorian London society. His detailed depictions of life in London's underbelly are so effective that the reader can smell the aroma of the unkempt and yet feel the nobility of their humanity. His equally honest portrayal of human foibles and the wrongs of class consciousness are settled in the reader's mind. His plot is unpredictable and surprises abound. Yet there is still a rousing ending that will leave the reader cheering.
This book is a must read and should be on recommended Victorian reading lists everywhere, with only a couple of warnings.
This is a work of historical excellence. As an American, it took me a while to become accustomed to the Victorian slang and other linguistic derivations of the time. But keep going, dear readers. For the language will become clear and that accuracy in language makes the book so much more genuine. There is no modern sensibility at play here. No cheap effort, the langauge helps to make the setting real.
This is also not the light happy fiction that many an American reader has come to expect from best-sellers. This is quality realism. Life in London's underbelly of the time was not pretty. Societal mores called for survival skills that some now will find repugnant. Gray's characters are real. None are perfect but all are very human.
Read this book! It is a historical treasure.
Rating: 5
Summary: Darkest Victorian London spawns a killer
Comment: Victorian London comes alive in all its squalor, filth, stink and teeming humanity in this clever, elegantly written thriller about a down-on-his-luck journalist determined to make his name by saving an innocent man from the gallows.
Edmund Whitty covers public hangings and other juicy topics of the day for a popular scandal sheet, which just about keeps him in drink and opium. He's fallen a notch from his Oxford Days, but not so low he can't feel ashamed when his cruel, clever jeering ruins the career of a "patterer," Henry Owler, whose sale of true crime verses barely keeps his daughter and his ward in greasy soup and straw pallets.
Owler seeks the exclusive confession of a serial killer, William Ryan, dubbed Chokee Bill, "the fiend in human form," and extracts a promise from Whitty (by arranging an involuntary visit to a labyrinthine slum) to resurrect his reputation if his verses prove true. Owler has an in at the prison, but there's a problem. Chokee Bill insists on his innocence and the killings have continued - hushed by the police, the merchants, even the pickpockets and Owler himself - all the people who suffered while fear of the fiend kept business away. Only Whitty, ever in need of a sensational story for his readers - has reason to pursue the real killer.
Gray takes us into the lodgings of the privileged and the reeking shacks of the destitute, the variously appointed taverns of journalists, prostitutes, thieves and worse. He takes us to brothels and drawing rooms and the prison cells of condemned men. And he spins a classic yarn full of heroism and hypocrisy, viciousness and desperation, thrills and just desserts and low blows.
The atmosphere is odoriferous and visual, the plot full of characters who belie their appearances, and the writing is witty, sardonic and Dickensian. If you like Caleb Carr, you will love John MacLachlan Gray.
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Title: Mr. Timothy by Louis Bayard ISBN: 0060534214 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 21 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Night Calls by David Pirie ISBN: 0312291043 Publisher: St. Martin's Minotaur Pub. Date: August, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Patient's Eyes by David Pirie ISBN: 0312990987 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 18 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: The Winter Queen : A Novel by Boris Akunin, Andrew Bromfield ISBN: 1400060494 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 06 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Grenadillo Box : A Novel by Janet Gleeson ISBN: 0743246861 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 01 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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