The Mangle Street Murders

Title: The Mangle Street Murders
Author: M.R.C. Kasasian
Published: 2013 by Head Of Zeus
Genre: Historical detective story
Pages: 329


Victorian London is one of my favourite times and places rolled in one, so how could I resist when this popped off the library shelf as I searched for Unissakulkija a bit over a week ago? The Mangle Street Murders is the first book of The Gower St Detective -books: there's two so far, third coming out this summer.

It's 1882, and recently orphaned March Middleton is invited to come and stay with a friend of her late father, one Sidney Grice, personal investigator. Mr. Grice certainly knows his value as a solver of crimes, and Ms. Middleton is far from the innocent country girl he expects her to be. They barely get to say hello when widowed Mrs. Dillinger arrives, begging for help for her son-in-law, accused of stabbing his wife some forty times. The title of the book being what it is, there'll be more blood shed.

It may be because I've been so caught up in the Swedish trilogy lately, but I didn't really warm up to this one, and contemplated *gasp* not finishing it until about page 200. There was definite potential, in the mystery and the characters, and Mr. Kasasian seems to be a wonderful storyteller, but Mr. Grice seemed too much of a git at times, making me want to give up. I'm glad I finished the book, though, as I did enjoy it, and the case was not an easily solved one!


   'The screen is to conceal me from snipers,' he said.
   'Have you ever been shot at?'
   'Many times.' He touched his left shoulder. 'But only hit once. I prefer it when they miss.'
   I laughed and Sidney Grice looked at me bleakly.
   'That was not a joke,' he said. 'Get down!' With that he threw himself to the floor and I kneeled quickly beside him. 'Absolutely hopeless,' he said. 'You will have to be faster than that in a real emergency.'
   'If you were wearing a bustle you would... Oh!' I looked up at the window in horror. 'Look out!' Sidney Grice flung himself down again as I got up. 'Annoying, isn't it?' I said. 'I do not think we shall play that game again.'