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Winter at Death's Hotel
New York, January 1896. Arthur Conan Doyle, the renowned created of Sherlock Holmes, arrives with his wife Louisa at the Britannic Hotel in New York for his first American tour. While Arthur prepares his lectures, Louisa becomes entranced by the vibrant, dangerous metropolis brimming with debauchery and iniquity around every corner. When a woman's mutilated corpse turns up in a Bowery alley, Louisa recognizes the victim as someone she's seen in the hotel. Obsessed with the woman's gruesome death, Louisa starts piecing together clues to reveal a story of murder and depravity -- a story that leads back to the hotel itself and a madman who is watching her every move.
From Fifth Avenue's glitzy opulence to the smoky boy's club of the New York Express and the Tombs of Lower Manhattan, Winter at Death's Hotel is an electrifying tale of a society caught in the throes of a story transformation and one woman determined to redeem it at whatever cost.
From Fifth Avenue's glitzy opulence to the smoky boy's club of the New York Express and the Tombs of Lower Manhattan, Winter at Death's Hotel is an electrifying tale of a society caught in the throes of a story transformation and one woman determined to redeem it at whatever cost.
389 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2011
73 people are currently reading
595 people want to read
About the author
Kenneth M. Cameron
23 books53 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Kenneth Cameron, AKA George Bartram, is the author or co-author of more than thirty books, including historical novels and novels of espionage, a critical history of the African safari, and an award-winning analysis of films about Africa (Africa on Film - MLA Independent Scholars Award). He has had plays produced Off- and Offf-Off Broadway and on the London Fringe. His first publications were two poems in the Best Poems of 1955. He lives part of the year in the woods of New York State’s Adirondacks, part in a small city in the South.
Together with his son, Christian Cameron, he wrote a series of military thrillers published under the name Gordon Kent.
Kenneth Cameron, AKA George Bartram, is the author or co-author of more than thirty books, including historical novels and novels of espionage, a critical history of the African safari, and an award-winning analysis of films about Africa (Africa on Film - MLA Independent Scholars Award). He has had plays produced Off- and Offf-Off Broadway and on the London Fringe. His first publications were two poems in the Best Poems of 1955. He lives part of the year in the woods of New York State’s Adirondacks, part in a small city in the South.
Together with his son, Christian Cameron, he wrote a series of military thrillers published under the name Gordon Kent.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 117 reviews
February 3, 2016
This novel was difficult for me to review, as I have two sides to my opinions on it.
One one hand, the writing was at times gripping, the author had a good, believable voice, and at times I was very into the storyline. But then the story would rely on yet another old cliche, and ruin things for me.... And I'm not the only female reader who seems to have felt this, either. “Winter at Death’s Hotel” by Kenneth Cameron seems to be lacking in Sense and Logic, at times.
What Mr Cameron has done with this novel, is he has at times indulged in every sick male fantasy along the way, allowing his heroine Mrs Doyle to be brutalized and near-raped by a crazed villain who was so obvious right from the beginning, I'd be concerned if you could not tell by half way through the novel. And just when you thought you couldn’t possibly be more irritated at all this, at the very end the author lets the villain escape and doesn’t even bother to tie together any of the other plot strings. The ending is VERY abrupt. I hated it, for many reasons.
These Are my issues with this novel:
-The plot, which may or may not have been based on Dr. H H Holmes' murder house, had some serious problems. Mr Cameron tries to make us believe that a tall, very large-shouldered man could snake his way through a narrow, less than 2 feet wide gap between walls AND climb up and down ladders and slide through trap doors in these “tunnels” with ease. While clearly totally insane, and having some kind of disease that effected his head so that it swelled very large, as well. (Wouldn't that effect his balance, and coordination at all...?).
-Somehow, the actual killer (not the elder hotel owner) is able to chase after two females, who are much smaller than him, without any problems at all, holding a knife in one hand and a lantern in the other, while tearing up and down vertical ladders and flitting through trap doors that are 2 feet wide, like some kind of monkey?
- And in ALL the years this peeping tom was doing this, no one else saw, or heard anything, to make them complain to the management, and find out why....? Only the servants notice, and complain, but the think it's just ghosts....? Ok, I will suspend my beliefs and my training in Architecture, and just keep reading...
-Incidentally, having suffered sprained ankles many times over throughout my life time, I would think that one doesn’t hobble about with crutches or walking sticks for 2 weeks like 28-year-old Louisa Doyle does. I haven't sprained my ankle nearly that badly, but to me, Louisa's ankle seemed broken, instead. Also, one does not take drugs like morphine for the first 3 days to dull the allegedly excruciating pain – it’s not actually that painful once the foot is elevated and wrapped up. And iced, for that matter.
-When Mrs Doyle craves independence from her controlling husband and seeks the companionship of other females, this author promptly lets her meet a preposterous pre-suffragette woman who tells Mrs Doyle that the “perfect man” is a man who acts out all his fantasies. In other words, when a woman has achieved independence as three of the women in this story have, she talks nothing but nonsense and can’t be anything other than a man hater and lesbian. I found this other character annoying and bitter. And then the same character helps Louisa throughout the end of the novel.....which doesn't seem like something that character would turn around and do....please correct me if I'm wrong?
-Then Dr. Conan Doyle starts acting horrid, and not giving Louisa hardly any money. Just what did this man expect his wife to live on, while he was gone for weeks, and while supporting/paying a maid? At this point in the novel the reader wonders if the author is trying to telling us that Louisa had better be a meek little wife, tolerating her husband’s irritating, mean and pompous ways instead of looking for a better life and marriage. I found Cameron's version of Dr. Conan Doyle really mental, with his mood swings and tight-fistedness as ridiculous, and off-putting. But thinking of your wife as more of a child than an equal? Like Dr. Conan Doyle did at the end of the novel? EW. Mr. Cameron, how could you?
-And the whole scene with the elder hotel owner was totally unnecessary, and the “Show us your Tits” type of chauvinistic writing.
-Also, every time a female character of this book is left to her own devices and without male company, she immediately strips off and twirls around her room without wearing much of anything. Given that the plot is set in the winter (the title was a dead give-away) and that 1896 hotels didn’t have the type of central heating we have today, this behaviour is clearly aimed to please male readers – which I doubt many would read this novel. And, Victorian people’s attitude to nudity was such that they would have bathed in their undergarments and not stripped off at all, never mind how cold or warm the room would have been.
-When protagonist Mrs Doyle meets the character of Minnie Fitch, a woman newspaper reporter cliché, both women embark on the beginnings of a lesbian relationship instead of doing what they set out to do, namely being comrades in arms against a common foe and becoming friends in the process. Naturally, the reporter suddenly freaks out mid-kiss, and won't return any of Louisa's phone calls. I'm guessing it's because she's worried she will be labeled subversive as well as another character did. (Fitch got murdered in the end, so this wouldn't happen. Don't worry! [sarcasm])
-When the reveal finally arrives, every reader with an ounce of sense will have guessed who the killer is. There were only ever 3 men who had the means and opportunity, and it was pretty obvious which one of them would be the killer.
-Not content with subjecting his heroine and female readers to horrendous ways in which the killer has murdered and disposed of his female victims, the author now treats his readers to a graphic description of a rape, the brutalization of two women, one of them Mrs Arthur Conan Doyle herself. What the descendants of historic characters like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his wife must have made of this horrible book one can only wonder.
-The author tells us that he researched New York City’s architecture as it was in the 1890s – it would have been far better had he spent time researching what motivated Victorian women, what their aspirations were in 1896 and what women really think of men – then and now. For it would have allowed him to present readers with realistic and believable female characters instead of hackneyed comic book fiction versions of women...and men for that matter.
-The brutalisation of women in this book is clearly used to shock us all, or perhaps even titillate those that like these kinds of scenes. All they did for me was trigger my rape issues.
-Dr. Conan Doyle lets the bleeding, dying killer get away, instead of pursuing him to help him out, because he is so worried about his poor little wife.
-The jewelry Louisa pawned, because her hubby was so tight with money can no longer be bought back, as the claim slip has burned up in the hotel's massive fire in the end. Which is a small issue, but how about it?
-The disfiguring disease/issue the elder hotel owner had, that disfigured his face and head, and caused Louisa to think was leprosy, was never explained. Was it contagious? Is Louisa going to get it?
-Teddy Roosevelt was an awful caricature, and I hated that.
My likes about this novel: or, But then again......
One of the main themes in the novel is the police brutality and corruption. Two men are on the take and Louisa and Maggie set out to prove that they have covered up the first murder in order to collect money from the husband. So you should expect this kind of behavior, in a city rife with it.
At the heart of Winter at Death’s Hotel is the figure of Louise Conan Doyle and she charms the socks off at nearly every page. A young and confident woman, vibrant and funny, restricted by her corsets and the conventions of marriage, she loves her husband Arthur, revelling in a sexual desire that is barely confined to the privacy of the bedchamber. This restraint or secrecy or even hypocrisy is a powerful theme of the novel. What is it that goes on behind closed doors, what secrets do walls hide and what happens when these passions or instincts are unleashed? Louisa might be tied by tradition and moral codes but, with her husband away, she can snip away at the laws, bit by bit.
Louisa draws others into her investigations, especially the ‘modern’ female journalist Minnie Fitch, her maid Ethel, the hotel detective and other guests in the hotel, which include Henry Irving and William ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody – a fascinating cast of characters. Then there is the police force. This is a time when New York City was ruled by its gangs and members of its police force had their own allegiances and codes. Everyone has their own agenda and goals, leaving Louisa and Minnie almost alone to fight for the victims. Very soon there is more than one and the Ripper-esque horrors suffered by these women makes Louise fight all the harder.
Kenneth Cameron achieves something nearly special with the style of "Winter at Death’s Hotel". It is -sometimes- extremely well written but it also benefits from an ease and accessibility that pulls the reader in from the beginning. All credit to Cameron for creating such a some what believable and likeable female heroine. Louisa is an admirable guide through the maze of 1890s’ polite society, through the pitfalls of a happy upper middle class marriage, and, ultimately, through a terrible sequence of events.
In a way, this ease and charm, the way we fall for characters such as Louisa and Minnie, it fools us because it means we are completely unprepared for the way that events unfold. I think while I read the second half of the novel it really turned things around for me, made me forget all the little issues that caused me consternation in the first half, and kept me reading through to the ending. This is certainly a novel I won’t forget in a hurry. But I don't know if I can urge anyone to read it.
How about 2 and a half stars?
One one hand, the writing was at times gripping, the author had a good, believable voice, and at times I was very into the storyline. But then the story would rely on yet another old cliche, and ruin things for me.... And I'm not the only female reader who seems to have felt this, either. “Winter at Death’s Hotel” by Kenneth Cameron seems to be lacking in Sense and Logic, at times.
What Mr Cameron has done with this novel, is he has at times indulged in every sick male fantasy along the way, allowing his heroine Mrs Doyle to be brutalized and near-raped by a crazed villain who was so obvious right from the beginning, I'd be concerned if you could not tell by half way through the novel. And just when you thought you couldn’t possibly be more irritated at all this, at the very end the author lets the villain escape and doesn’t even bother to tie together any of the other plot strings. The ending is VERY abrupt. I hated it, for many reasons.
These Are my issues with this novel:
-The plot, which may or may not have been based on Dr. H H Holmes' murder house, had some serious problems. Mr Cameron tries to make us believe that a tall, very large-shouldered man could snake his way through a narrow, less than 2 feet wide gap between walls AND climb up and down ladders and slide through trap doors in these “tunnels” with ease. While clearly totally insane, and having some kind of disease that effected his head so that it swelled very large, as well. (Wouldn't that effect his balance, and coordination at all...?).
-Somehow, the actual killer (not the elder hotel owner) is able to chase after two females, who are much smaller than him, without any problems at all, holding a knife in one hand and a lantern in the other, while tearing up and down vertical ladders and flitting through trap doors that are 2 feet wide, like some kind of monkey?
- And in ALL the years this peeping tom was doing this, no one else saw, or heard anything, to make them complain to the management, and find out why....? Only the servants notice, and complain, but the think it's just ghosts....? Ok, I will suspend my beliefs and my training in Architecture, and just keep reading...
-Incidentally, having suffered sprained ankles many times over throughout my life time, I would think that one doesn’t hobble about with crutches or walking sticks for 2 weeks like 28-year-old Louisa Doyle does. I haven't sprained my ankle nearly that badly, but to me, Louisa's ankle seemed broken, instead. Also, one does not take drugs like morphine for the first 3 days to dull the allegedly excruciating pain – it’s not actually that painful once the foot is elevated and wrapped up. And iced, for that matter.
-When Mrs Doyle craves independence from her controlling husband and seeks the companionship of other females, this author promptly lets her meet a preposterous pre-suffragette woman who tells Mrs Doyle that the “perfect man” is a man who acts out all his fantasies. In other words, when a woman has achieved independence as three of the women in this story have, she talks nothing but nonsense and can’t be anything other than a man hater and lesbian. I found this other character annoying and bitter. And then the same character helps Louisa throughout the end of the novel.....which doesn't seem like something that character would turn around and do....please correct me if I'm wrong?
-Then Dr. Conan Doyle starts acting horrid, and not giving Louisa hardly any money. Just what did this man expect his wife to live on, while he was gone for weeks, and while supporting/paying a maid? At this point in the novel the reader wonders if the author is trying to telling us that Louisa had better be a meek little wife, tolerating her husband’s irritating, mean and pompous ways instead of looking for a better life and marriage. I found Cameron's version of Dr. Conan Doyle really mental, with his mood swings and tight-fistedness as ridiculous, and off-putting. But thinking of your wife as more of a child than an equal? Like Dr. Conan Doyle did at the end of the novel? EW. Mr. Cameron, how could you?
-And the whole scene with the elder hotel owner was totally unnecessary, and the “Show us your Tits” type of chauvinistic writing.
-Also, every time a female character of this book is left to her own devices and without male company, she immediately strips off and twirls around her room without wearing much of anything. Given that the plot is set in the winter (the title was a dead give-away) and that 1896 hotels didn’t have the type of central heating we have today, this behaviour is clearly aimed to please male readers – which I doubt many would read this novel. And, Victorian people’s attitude to nudity was such that they would have bathed in their undergarments and not stripped off at all, never mind how cold or warm the room would have been.
-When protagonist Mrs Doyle meets the character of Minnie Fitch, a woman newspaper reporter cliché, both women embark on the beginnings of a lesbian relationship instead of doing what they set out to do, namely being comrades in arms against a common foe and becoming friends in the process. Naturally, the reporter suddenly freaks out mid-kiss, and won't return any of Louisa's phone calls. I'm guessing it's because she's worried she will be labeled subversive as well as another character did. (Fitch got murdered in the end, so this wouldn't happen. Don't worry! [sarcasm])
-When the reveal finally arrives, every reader with an ounce of sense will have guessed who the killer is. There were only ever 3 men who had the means and opportunity, and it was pretty obvious which one of them would be the killer.
-Not content with subjecting his heroine and female readers to horrendous ways in which the killer has murdered and disposed of his female victims, the author now treats his readers to a graphic description of a rape, the brutalization of two women, one of them Mrs Arthur Conan Doyle herself. What the descendants of historic characters like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his wife must have made of this horrible book one can only wonder.
-The author tells us that he researched New York City’s architecture as it was in the 1890s – it would have been far better had he spent time researching what motivated Victorian women, what their aspirations were in 1896 and what women really think of men – then and now. For it would have allowed him to present readers with realistic and believable female characters instead of hackneyed comic book fiction versions of women...and men for that matter.
-The brutalisation of women in this book is clearly used to shock us all, or perhaps even titillate those that like these kinds of scenes. All they did for me was trigger my rape issues.
-Dr. Conan Doyle lets the bleeding, dying killer get away, instead of pursuing him to help him out, because he is so worried about his poor little wife.
-The jewelry Louisa pawned, because her hubby was so tight with money can no longer be bought back, as the claim slip has burned up in the hotel's massive fire in the end. Which is a small issue, but how about it?
-The disfiguring disease/issue the elder hotel owner had, that disfigured his face and head, and caused Louisa to think was leprosy, was never explained. Was it contagious? Is Louisa going to get it?
-Teddy Roosevelt was an awful caricature, and I hated that.
My likes about this novel: or, But then again......
One of the main themes in the novel is the police brutality and corruption. Two men are on the take and Louisa and Maggie set out to prove that they have covered up the first murder in order to collect money from the husband. So you should expect this kind of behavior, in a city rife with it.
At the heart of Winter at Death’s Hotel is the figure of Louise Conan Doyle and she charms the socks off at nearly every page. A young and confident woman, vibrant and funny, restricted by her corsets and the conventions of marriage, she loves her husband Arthur, revelling in a sexual desire that is barely confined to the privacy of the bedchamber. This restraint or secrecy or even hypocrisy is a powerful theme of the novel. What is it that goes on behind closed doors, what secrets do walls hide and what happens when these passions or instincts are unleashed? Louisa might be tied by tradition and moral codes but, with her husband away, she can snip away at the laws, bit by bit.
Louisa draws others into her investigations, especially the ‘modern’ female journalist Minnie Fitch, her maid Ethel, the hotel detective and other guests in the hotel, which include Henry Irving and William ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody – a fascinating cast of characters. Then there is the police force. This is a time when New York City was ruled by its gangs and members of its police force had their own allegiances and codes. Everyone has their own agenda and goals, leaving Louisa and Minnie almost alone to fight for the victims. Very soon there is more than one and the Ripper-esque horrors suffered by these women makes Louise fight all the harder.
Kenneth Cameron achieves something nearly special with the style of "Winter at Death’s Hotel". It is -sometimes- extremely well written but it also benefits from an ease and accessibility that pulls the reader in from the beginning. All credit to Cameron for creating such a some what believable and likeable female heroine. Louisa is an admirable guide through the maze of 1890s’ polite society, through the pitfalls of a happy upper middle class marriage, and, ultimately, through a terrible sequence of events.
In a way, this ease and charm, the way we fall for characters such as Louisa and Minnie, it fools us because it means we are completely unprepared for the way that events unfold. I think while I read the second half of the novel it really turned things around for me, made me forget all the little issues that caused me consternation in the first half, and kept me reading through to the ending. This is certainly a novel I won’t forget in a hurry. But I don't know if I can urge anyone to read it.
How about 2 and a half stars?
August 28, 2013
This book is hard to rate... The premise of the story and general storyline were interesting and kept me involved, but there were several aspects to the story that were a bit bothersome. First and foremost, the ending was rather abrupt and unsatisfying! Next, the author included some rather unnecessary sexual behaviors by and between characters... not graphic or distasteful, but just rather superfluous to the story in my opinion. Finally, the "murders" were SO overly gruesome and debasing -- I wondered why that much horror was necessary. This book left me with so many unanswered questions! Hence the lower rating.
November 4, 2018
The pervasiveness of the male gaze and seeming aggression towards women that drips from every page of this book would have been enough for me to not like. If, however, it had been successful as either historical fiction or mystery, I could have appreciated it for what it was. Sadly, for this reader, this was a uniform failure in writing, plot, characters, and theme.
February 3, 2017
In the year 1896, while Arthur Conan Doyle is on a book tour of American his wife becomes involved in a series of unexplained murders. Cameron creates an interesting picture of New York in the late nineteenth century & the story moves along at a reasonable pace. Amidst the brutal murders there are some good moments of humour, especially in Doyle's letters to his wife in which he complains the only people coming to see him on tour are middle aged women who only want to hear him talk about Sherlock Holmes. Having the focus of the book on Doyle's wife is quite refreshing, & although not an exciting read it's quite an enjoyable one.
June 23, 2017
This was one of those books that was going good until the end. The ending just ruined it for me. They knew who did and they got away. Plus the ending was very abrupt.
dnf
August 6, 2025I found this book very strange. The choices made by the writer struck me as odd, almost bizarre and I knew very early on that this was not going to work for me. That said, I am not rating it because it was a DNF very early and I do not want to have any impact on the overall rating.
The kinds of detail the author included for both Conan Doyle and his wife Touie seemed incongruous and completely unrelated to the plot - things that related to the sex life between the Conan Doyles and the unusual way the Brits reacted to New York and New Yorkers. It was just so odd and as it began literally from the first few pages it set a tone that was just too strange for me.
The kinds of detail the author included for both Conan Doyle and his wife Touie seemed incongruous and completely unrelated to the plot - things that related to the sex life between the Conan Doyles and the unusual way the Brits reacted to New York and New Yorkers. It was just so odd and as it began literally from the first few pages it set a tone that was just too strange for me.
January 2, 2012
In 1896 celebrated author Arthur Conan Doyle arrives in New York with his wife Louisa on the first stage of a book tour. Following an inconvenient injury to her ankle Louisa cannot travel with her husband and must stay behind in the Brittanic Hotel with her maid. A series of gruesome Jack The Ripper-style murders are terrorising the city, and Louise becomes involved in the search for the killer when she realises she can identify one of the victims.
I knew a little bit about Conan Doyle before I read this book, but I don’t know if the fictional Arthur and the fictional Louisa are anything like their real life counterparts. The Louisa in this book is a wonderful creation – she’s aware that she has led a very sheltered life, but is determined to live life to the full and will not stand by and see injustice allowed to thrive. She seems to know that the time is approaching for change and that women won’t be constrained in the same way in the next century – she’s already pushing the boundaries in that direction. She revels in being able to use her intelligence and relishes seeing aspects of life she wouldn’t normally encounter.
Minnie Fitch, the New York newspaper reporter, is another great female character who brings the city to life. There are other real life characters and plenty of fictional ones – in fact there may be a few too many fictional ones as I didn’t think that the sub-plot concerning the New York police force was entirely successful. This seemed to be down to a combination of too many characters who were too similar and the fact that this aspect of the novel seemed more sketchy than the rest.
It’s obviously difficult to review a crime novel as you risk spoiling others’ enjoyment if you give too much away, but to me this was a satisfying period piece, with just enough clues scattered for the reader to identify the killer around the same time as Louisa does. It provides a few good scares and some particularly grisly murders. It also something to say about women’s place in the society of the time and introduces a new heroine that I would like to meet again.
I knew a little bit about Conan Doyle before I read this book, but I don’t know if the fictional Arthur and the fictional Louisa are anything like their real life counterparts. The Louisa in this book is a wonderful creation – she’s aware that she has led a very sheltered life, but is determined to live life to the full and will not stand by and see injustice allowed to thrive. She seems to know that the time is approaching for change and that women won’t be constrained in the same way in the next century – she’s already pushing the boundaries in that direction. She revels in being able to use her intelligence and relishes seeing aspects of life she wouldn’t normally encounter.
Minnie Fitch, the New York newspaper reporter, is another great female character who brings the city to life. There are other real life characters and plenty of fictional ones – in fact there may be a few too many fictional ones as I didn’t think that the sub-plot concerning the New York police force was entirely successful. This seemed to be down to a combination of too many characters who were too similar and the fact that this aspect of the novel seemed more sketchy than the rest.
It’s obviously difficult to review a crime novel as you risk spoiling others’ enjoyment if you give too much away, but to me this was a satisfying period piece, with just enough clues scattered for the reader to identify the killer around the same time as Louisa does. It provides a few good scares and some particularly grisly murders. It also something to say about women’s place in the society of the time and introduces a new heroine that I would like to meet again.
September 3, 2014
I did love this book. The story, characters and setting were well drawn and very powerful. The heroine, Louisa, is the wife of Sir Arthur Canon Doyle, who is left behind in a hotel in New York after she sprains her ankle and is unable to join her husband on his book tour. Louisa is a multifaceted and truly heroic character. Kenneth Cameron did a fabulous job of writing a woman, the struggles of women of that time and capturing the struggle of curious and agile mind struggling against constraints. I did not fine the gruesome aspects of this story beyond the pale. They were grisly, but certainly deserved to be exposed rather than comfortably, glossed over.
My dominant compliant is that this story absolutely needed and deserved one more chapter. The ending was very unsatisfying, a bit unresolved and deserved some closure. I wanted to observe more of the fall out of the hotel, our killer, Arthur's return, Louisa's first fragile steps forward. By leaving off as he did, I felt that the end was not very validating from and for a feminist perspective. Louisa deserved her due. Were there another chapter, I would have gladly given five stars.
***days later I am still thinking about this book and have given it another half a star. Louisa deserves it!
My dominant compliant is that this story absolutely needed and deserved one more chapter. The ending was very unsatisfying, a bit unresolved and deserved some closure. I wanted to observe more of the fall out of the hotel, our killer, Arthur's return, Louisa's first fragile steps forward. By leaving off as he did, I felt that the end was not very validating from and for a feminist perspective. Louisa deserved her due. Were there another chapter, I would have gladly given five stars.
***days later I am still thinking about this book and have given it another half a star. Louisa deserves it!
January 16, 2014
A rollicking good read that kept my attention and just kept getting better. Hard to imagine a man could write so knowingly from a woman's point of view. After finishing the story, my curiosity was peaked about the real-life version of the protagonist, Lousia Hawkins Doyle, first wife of the famous author of the Sherlock Holmes tales. The husband certainly came across as something of a self-absorbed lout, and it was hardly surprising to learn that in real life, Louisa was not well treated by him . He took up with a younger woman ten years before Louisa's death, meanwhile shipping her off to TB convalescent homes to languish while he played with his new sweetie. One almost hopes that Louisa did have the fictional adventures depicted, and a lot more. fun besides before her life was cut short at age 37.
May 18, 2018
The main character was indecisive, back-and forth, and largely unlikable. I think Cameron really struggled to write from a female perspective, and the book suffered from that. The attempt to write from multiple perspectives didn't excel, because 80% of the time it was only Louisa, and the rest was split among the rest. His writing style also hurt the way he described action scenes, which were often hard to follow. While that plot was interesting, and many of the themes involving corruption and morality were intriguing, I feel that for a work which clearly took inspiration from H. H Holmes and his hotel in Chicago, it would have been far better to stick to basing and retelling that history.
September 18, 2018
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle comes to America with his wife Louisa, to tour the states talking about his new books featuring Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. While staying at the hotel of choice in New York City, a lovely woman passes by the couple and Louisa takes notice.
Days later this woman's picture appears in the paper, she has been presumed to be a prostitute and found dead in an alley with much disfigurement.
Arthur and Louisa are set to leave on the first leg of the trip when she trips on the hotel carpet and sprains her ankle.
Louisa is determined to get justice for the prostitutes that keep turning up dead while she is recovering in the hotel.
Will her determination make her the next victim? Read it and find out!
I very much enjoyed the book and had to remind myself where the things that Louisa had to put up with were because of the time period of the setting. No money of her own etc.
Days later this woman's picture appears in the paper, she has been presumed to be a prostitute and found dead in an alley with much disfigurement.
Arthur and Louisa are set to leave on the first leg of the trip when she trips on the hotel carpet and sprains her ankle.
Louisa is determined to get justice for the prostitutes that keep turning up dead while she is recovering in the hotel.
Will her determination make her the next victim? Read it and find out!
I very much enjoyed the book and had to remind myself where the things that Louisa had to put up with were because of the time period of the setting. No money of her own etc.
February 1, 2025
I found this book a difficult read. I was intrigued by the premise, but I was not hooked by the execution. Some errors in the book that I found confusing - characters given the wrong name halfway through a paragraph for example. A lot of unnecessarily graphic and horrific detail of murders and rape not inkeeping with the vibe of the rest of the novel. The main character very much a woman written by and for the male gaze, which was off putting. And a hugely disappointing ending. If anything, finishing this book has confirmed for me that life really is too short to persevere if I’m not enjoying a book.
December 13, 2019
The ending sucked! That knocked the rating down a notch.
August 16, 2013
I don't read a lot of mysteries anymore- I used to be all about a good mystery and would read them like they were going out of style. Somewhere along the line, I just stopped picking them up. Winter at Death's Hotel was a book that made me question why I ever stopped devouring mysteries. When Winter at Death's Hotel came across my mailbox, I was skeptical at first. I read some Sherlock Holmes forever ago (and don't remember it much, honestly) and have watched both Elementary and Sherlock on and off. I have not been faithful to Holmes and worried I would struggle to be faithful to this book. How wrong I was! Winter at Death's Hotel is set in the winter of 1896 in New York City. The beginning lays the setting and sets the characters in motion. As much as I love a deep background, it did get a bit heavy handed. The big surprise in this novel is that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is not the shinning star - instead it is his wife, Louisa, who takes the spotlight. Cameron did a beautiful job describing her character. It was marvelous to read about MRS. Doyle instead! Not only did Cameron lay out her character, but he also did a remarkable job writing for the time period. The language and treatment of women stuck out as I read this. It was disheartening, because I know that it is all brutally honest. Women were second class then- even if you were the wife of a famous author. The scene is set and soon Arthur is on his way lecturing across America while Louisa is stuck in a hotel with not very much to do. This is when the novel really picks up. We've heard about this Bowery Butcher that kills women and is on the loose in the City. As you read on, you realize that Louisa is suddenly fully immersed in the killings. How exactly, did she get so tangled in this web of murder? Before you know it, Louisa is a full time sleuth on the case. All of Arthur's writing have rubbed off and she is ready to solve the mystery of the Bowery Butcher. This novel is a fabulous mystery. I was on the edge of my seat, especially after I worked my way through the early chapters. It got off to a slow start for me, but then it took off like a jet. Suddenly, I couldn't put it down and all I could do was work over the details in my head to try and solve the mystery before Louisa (which I failed at doing, by the way). The conclusion was a thrilling ride! I was excited to learn the truth, and it made mulling the entire novel over quite interesting. The ending let the book open to another in the series, and I cannot wait. This book is a definite must-read for fans of Holmes and fans of murder mysteries. I think this would also be a fun novel for anyone interested in the time period- Cameron did a spectacular job putting the reader right there in 1896. Readers do need to be aware that this book does contain some racy language and some disturbing descriptions. If you have a weak stomach, some of the murder details may make you cringe.
September 21, 2014
Uneven
My feelings about this book changed many times over the course of reading it. At times it was interesting, at times it dragged, at times it was a thrill ride, and at one point overly graphic and violent. I enjoy historical fiction and the author did a good job with scene and character development. Briefly, this is the story of Arthur Conan Doyle's wife Louisa and their first trip to NYC. She becomes interested and embroiled in the case of a serial killer. There is a secondary story of police corruption, featuring Teddy Roosevelt's attempt to clean up the department. Both stories are interesting. However, I think the book The Alienist has a more balanced portrayal of Roosevelt and the police department. Louisa is a great character, complex and modern. The book ends very abruptly. I like a book that does not tie up all the loose ends, but this really leaves you hanging with no questions answered. Perhaps there are plans for a sequel. My other complaint is the graphic language and violence toward the end of the book. This is not something that typically bothers me, but here it seemed out of place. It seemed like the author was trying too hard to be shocking. Despite the three star rating, I would read another book with Louisa Doyle as the heroine.
My feelings about this book changed many times over the course of reading it. At times it was interesting, at times it dragged, at times it was a thrill ride, and at one point overly graphic and violent. I enjoy historical fiction and the author did a good job with scene and character development. Briefly, this is the story of Arthur Conan Doyle's wife Louisa and their first trip to NYC. She becomes interested and embroiled in the case of a serial killer. There is a secondary story of police corruption, featuring Teddy Roosevelt's attempt to clean up the department. Both stories are interesting. However, I think the book The Alienist has a more balanced portrayal of Roosevelt and the police department. Louisa is a great character, complex and modern. The book ends very abruptly. I like a book that does not tie up all the loose ends, but this really leaves you hanging with no questions answered. Perhaps there are plans for a sequel. My other complaint is the graphic language and violence toward the end of the book. This is not something that typically bothers me, but here it seemed out of place. It seemed like the author was trying too hard to be shocking. Despite the three star rating, I would read another book with Louisa Doyle as the heroine.
April 7, 2013
Since reading the excellent Oscar Wilde stories by Gyles Brandreth, I became fascinated at the idea of famous people such as Oscar Wilde being heroes within their own mystery novels, therefore when I saw “Winter at Death’s Hotel” starred Louisa Conan Doyle, it was a must read.
I found this story extremely gruesome, graphic and gross – this was not necessarily a bad thing, as the very themes the story explores require it to be hard hitting and vulgar on the eye in order to yield the greatest impact on the reader. Such themes include: murder, friendship, social status, class divides, homosexuality, view of women in late nineteenth century, exploitation of and violence towards women, women in the workplace and corruption in the police force.
Louisa was an unlikely but great heroine, she managed to learn about and cope with all the above themes with a sense of dignity and her mettle did not fail, not even at her lowest point.
I found this story extremely gruesome, graphic and gross – this was not necessarily a bad thing, as the very themes the story explores require it to be hard hitting and vulgar on the eye in order to yield the greatest impact on the reader. Such themes include: murder, friendship, social status, class divides, homosexuality, view of women in late nineteenth century, exploitation of and violence towards women, women in the workplace and corruption in the police force.
Louisa was an unlikely but great heroine, she managed to learn about and cope with all the above themes with a sense of dignity and her mettle did not fail, not even at her lowest point.
January 25, 2013
It is 1896 and the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle, has arrived in New York to start a lecture tour. With him is his wife, Louisa. They stay at an upmarket hotel, but just as they are about to check out to start their journey around the eastern states, Louisa trips up and badly sprains her ankle, making it impossible for her to accompany her husband. Reluctantly, he goes on without her.
Really enjoyed this...excellent observations on the culture clash between upper class British and the New World. Also how a woman restrained by traditional roles and moral codes finds New York refreshing liberal. Louisa is a charming character who alternates by being horrified and secretly thrilled at the freedom she experiences. Oh and there is a Ripper-esque murderer at large....unexpectedly powerful and not for the faint hearted.
Really enjoyed this...excellent observations on the culture clash between upper class British and the New World. Also how a woman restrained by traditional roles and moral codes finds New York refreshing liberal. Louisa is a charming character who alternates by being horrified and secretly thrilled at the freedom she experiences. Oh and there is a Ripper-esque murderer at large....unexpectedly powerful and not for the faint hearted.
April 30, 2015
There is a trend in historical fiction which questions the "modern thinking" of historical figures. It argues that these characters are written from a more modern way of thinking about gender equality that doesn't quite mesh with the actual person. There is none of that in this book, rather the author, in a rather heavy handed way does this with sexuality. This book brims with sexual innuendos in such an obvious and in your face way that it detracts from the mystery itself. If the author had toned it down, you would lose about a third of the book's physical weight. The mystery was okay but Cameron does not do a very good job of developing his female characters and one plot twist is completely unexplained. Not a book I would recommend as the premise was interesting but the execution poor.
October 17, 2015
I thought this book was a bit of a mess. Was the author trying to comment on rampant police corruption in turn of the century NYC, the taboo of homosexuality, paternalism or class structures? The general plot had potential, but the twists seemed obvious to me, they were fairly well foreshadowed at the outset. Mrs. Doyle was a disaster. Was she a child to be coddled or an independent woman exploring a horror? What was her problem with every man she met? No real explanation about why all men bothered her, unless she was supposed to be a closet lesbian. If that was the case, (a) what did that have to do with the plot and (b) why does lesbianism mean hatred of men. If Cameron had focused on one concept, instead of trying to tie up so many social commentaries, his story may have been a better read.
August 1, 2015
I seem to be in the minority with my rating, but such is life.
I found that the book moved along far,far too slowly. I had to force myself to keep reading, not something that one generally desires. The novel managed to pick up pace...more than halfway through the book (around chapter 10 or so). Picking up so dramatically so suddenly made the action feel unrealistic.
The novel ended with zero resolution. I know some are fans of that sort of ending, yet...when so much of the book is spent developing characters, it seems a cruel ploy to use. Extremely frustrating. What happens to Dunne, Ethel...or most importantly, Louisa?
The novel had enjoyable characters, the author used terror phenomenally in the last chapter or two...but I was not pleased with the overall results.
I found that the book moved along far,far too slowly. I had to force myself to keep reading, not something that one generally desires. The novel managed to pick up pace...more than halfway through the book (around chapter 10 or so). Picking up so dramatically so suddenly made the action feel unrealistic.
The novel ended with zero resolution. I know some are fans of that sort of ending, yet...when so much of the book is spent developing characters, it seems a cruel ploy to use. Extremely frustrating. What happens to Dunne, Ethel...or most importantly, Louisa?
The novel had enjoyable characters, the author used terror phenomenally in the last chapter or two...but I was not pleased with the overall results.
March 3, 2014
Ugh! This was disappointing!! At the start it was entertaining and I was looking forward to a little murder/mystery. I enjoyed the small twists and turns. Unfortunately the author rambles on about things unrelated to the plot making the book a little dull at times. He does not make compete connections between the rambling and the plot. I did not find the detailed description of the final altercation necessary and almost stopped reading because of it. Then the abrupt ending leaves everything hanging anyway - no resolution to the plot! Again ugh!
September 11, 2015
loved this.Arthur Conan Doyle are in New York as Arthur is on a lecture tour of the States. Louisa is forced to stay in New York after a fall. she reads about a horrific murder and recognises the victim. but when she reports to the police they threaten her. the only person who believes her is a newspaper reporter as more deaths occur they must work together to find the killer. first book i've read by this author but it won't be my last.
July 23, 2014
I really wanted this to be good. I stopped and started it several times before I finally decided not to continue reading it. The storyline was good for the most part. I just could not get past the sometimes vulgar language and suggestive descriptions. I kept hoping the author would stop so I could enjoy the story.
February 25, 2016
Very good book all the way through to the last chapter... I really didn't like the ending. We should all write to him and tell him to change the ending! If he did I would give it more stars. I had such hopes for this book, I love murder mysteries in the Victorian era, and that it had a well known person as one of the characters was at first exciting...then a let down.
November 28, 2018
This book ended so abruptly I was left looking to see if a chapter had been ripped out of my copy.
It seemed that after the third murder, the tone of the book changed- did the author have a deadline to finish it? It lost its appeal as I found the final chapters just became aggressive and debasing to women.
It seemed that after the third murder, the tone of the book changed- did the author have a deadline to finish it? It lost its appeal as I found the final chapters just became aggressive and debasing to women.
November 2, 2020
The set-up seemed really interesting at first - a story featuring Conan Doyle's wife. However, the story got more and more gruesome, and the final scenes felt more suited to be featured in a movie than in a book. What's more, the whole book ended very abruptly and left me wanting a bit more closure.
May 24, 2021
A Men Writing Women meme right from the get-go
Read
January 6, 2014Contains spoilers
“Winter at Death’s Hotel” by Kenneth Cameron is only good for one thing: tear out each page and use it to wrap up your soiled sanitary towels or tampons, ladies, before disposing of both! Writers of both sexes: this book is a perfect example of how NOT TO WRITE a novel in the 21st century.
Interestingly, on the hard cover copy I borrowed from my local library there is no “blurb” summarising or even hinting at the plot; instead, we are told on the outer sleeve that author Lee Child thinks the Cameron novel is “beautifully imagined and perfectly executed”.
There's certainly a lesson to be learned here: Be careful, fellow writers, what you recommend to readers...for I shan’t ever read a book written by Mr Child’s as a direct result of his recommendation!
What did Orion Books, the publishers, do to Mr Child? Club him over the head with an encyclopaedia of proper crime writers? The mind boggles if Mr Child thought this was a “perfectly executed “ plot for it contains more tired old clichés and sheer nonsense than I have seen in a very long time. It was a real struggle to finish this book and at the end of it I was utterly disgusted.
Hitch up to the Holmes’ Band-wagon and watch the Money rolling in
You can just picture it: Mr Cameron told his publishers he was going to write a book where the wife of Sherlock Holmes’ creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, investigates a series of gruesome murders in New York. An adventure that will change her life and attitude to marriage forever, the inner book sleeve promises the reader. What a delightfully cute idea, the publishers must have thought!
And what a cunning marketing ploy to tie in with the BBC’s successful “Sherlock” TV series not to mention the recent Hollywood movies about Sherlock Holmes!
Lacking Sense and Sensibility...and a healthy Dollop of Logic
What Mr Cameron probably failed to mention in the synopsis he handed to his editor was that he would indulge in every sick male fantasy along the way, allowing his heroine Mrs Doyle to be brutalised and raped by a crazed villain who was so obvious right from the beginning that this is not a “who-dunnit” but a “when-will-ya-get-to-the-point” type of book right from the outset.
And just when you thought you couldn’t possibly be more irritated at all this rubbishy writing, at the very end the author lets the villain escape and doesn’t even bother to tie together any of the other plot strings. Perhaps the author got just as bored as this reader did?
The plot, incidentally, is clearly based on the infamous real life “Chicago murder hotel” of Dr Henry Howard Holmes. In 1893, HH Holmes built a hotel that he used as a factory for murdering people for their money. His killing spree later escalated to such an extent that he murdered whole families, raping and torturing anyone, no matter what age, just for the fun of it.
Mr Cameron sets the plot for his novel in New York City in 1896 but instead of applying logic to the architectural facets of his book, he tries to make us believe that a tall, large man could snake his way through a narrow, less than 60cm wide gap between walls AND climb up and down ladders and slide through trap doors in these “tunnels” with ease. Ever gone pot-holing, Mr Author? Clearly not.
Who exactly did Mr C. think built these tunnels between outer hotel walls? Snow White’s 7 dinky dwarfs? Your average sized builder wouldn’t have fitted in there, that’s for sure, not even an undernourished working man of 1896!
To fix ladders to brick walls there have to be brackets. In total, ladder and brackets would take up at least another 20 cm. So, the killer is able to chase after two females, who are much smaller than him, without any problems at all, holding a knife in one hand and a lantern in the other, while scampering up and down vertical ladders and flitting through trap doors like he’s a jack-in-the-box in tunnels just 40cm wide in places? I think not!
Incidentally, having suffered severely sprained ankles many times over throughout my life time, I can say with some authority that one doesn’t hobble about with crutches or walking sticks for 2 weeks like 28-year-old Louisa Doyle does in this book nor does one take drugs like morphine for the first 3 days to dull the allegedly excruciating pain – it’s not actually that painful once the foot is elevated and strapped up. Yet another unbelievable plot device by the author and one that could have been so easily researched!
There should be a red flashing Button for “Cliché Alert”
A good writer is able to make us forget their own gender, when describing the adventures of a protagonist possessed of a gender opposite to the writer’s own.
At no point whatsoever in this novel can the reader forget that the author is a man trying to write the story from a woman’s point of view. He so utterly fails to capture what makes a female a woman that at times I wondered if he’d actually ever met one.
When Mrs Doyle craves independence from her controlling husband and seeks the companionship of other females, this author promptly lets her meet a preposterous pre-suffragette woman who tells Mrs Doyle that the “perfect man” is a man who acts out all his fantasies, which in this instance means the Bowery Butcher, the man responsible for the gruesome murders. In other words, when a woman has achieved independence as three of the women in this story have, she talks nothing but nonsense and can’t be anything other than a man hater and lesbian.
At this point in the novel the reader wonders if the author is trying to telling us, Louisa had better put up and shut up and be a meek little wife, tolerating her husband’s irritating, mean and pompous ways instead of looking for a better life and marriage. For no matter how “imperfect” Mr Doyle is as a husband, at least he’s not acting out what a “perfect” man would be like, given half a chance. Yep, given half a chance, men will be cavemen and rapists, we knew that, didn’t we, girls?
Reader question: Is Mr Author actually capable of seeing men and women as real people or can he only recognise 2-dimensional card-board cut-outs?
Just when you thought the “Show us your Tits” Type of Writing had become extinct...
Every time a female character of this book is left to her own devices and without male company, she immediately strips off and dances around her room without wearing a stitch. Given that the plot is set in the winter (the title was a dead give-away) and that 1896 hotels didn’t have the type of central heating we have today, this behaviour is clearly aimed to please male readers – Victorian people’s attitude to nudity was such that they would have bathed in their undergarments and not stripped off at all, never mind how cold or warm the room would have been. Never mind, the MALE author needs his own personal fantasies indulged, what-ho.
Remind me again, when exactly did male chauvinist pig-dinosaurs become extinct?
When protagonist Mrs Doyle meets the character of Minnie Fitch, a woman newspaper reporter or rather the cliché of one, Mr Cameron’s male fantasies completely get the better of him and both women embark on the beginnings of a lesbian relationship instead of doing what they set out to do, namely being comrades in arms against a common foe and becoming friends in the process. Naturally, they need to be punished for daring to be happy without men. They both need to get their come-uppance, and boy, does the author get his male revenge!
How much more cliché can the reader take at this point? You’d better roll up your sleeves and soldier on, because there’s much more to come!
When the reveal finally arrives, every reader with an ounce of sense will have guessed who the killer is. There were only ever 3 men who had the means and opportunity, and it was pretty obvious which one of them would be the killer.
Not content with subjecting his heroine and female readers to horrendous and disgusting ways in which the killer has murdered and disposed of his female victims, the author now “treats” his readers to a graphic description of a rape, the brutalization of two women, one of them Mrs Arthur Conan Doyle herself. What the descendants of historic characters like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his wife must have made of this horrible book one can only surmise.
Personally, I would have visited one of Mr C’s book signings and smacked him with his stupid book where it hurts the most. And then some!
Know thine Enemy
The author tells us that he researched New York City’s architecture as it was in the 1890s – it would have been far better had he spent time researching what motivated Victorian women, what their aspirations were in 1896 and what women really think of men – then and now. For it would have allowed him to present readers with realistic and believable female characters instead of hackneyed comic book fiction versions of women...and men for that matter.
The brutalisation of women in this book is clearly used to "teach them a lesson", both by the villain and the author, one feels. I know this will come as a shock to you, Mr Ignorant Author, but believable female protagonists don’t need to be fictionally raped to understand that men, without exception, are capable of anything, no matter how horrible, disgusting or brutal. There’s a whole wrecked and gasping-for-air Planet Earth all around us with two million years of men’s history, showing us exactly what men are really like every minute of the day. Messrs Hitler, Dr Mengele, Dr H H Holmes and Jack the Ripper were men or had you forgotten, Mr Author?
Lousia’s violation appears to serve as a cruel writer's plot device,forcing her to finally “grow up” as if she wasn't already an adult. This, of course, is utterly revolting,sensationalist, despicable and frankly, in my opinion, tells us everything we never wanted to know about Kenneth Cameron and his warped attitude to women, and obviously nothing about Victorian women and their relationship to Victorian men.
Instead of wasting your time with this novel, borrow a few biographies on courageous historic heroines like Mrs Pankhurst and her suffragettes to remind yourself why women fought for the vote and are still fighting for a better world. Or simply read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "Sherlock Holmes" who, one feels certain, would have bobbed Kenneth Cameron squarely on the nose for this awful book. Failing that, Mrs Hudson would have done!
“Winter at Death’s Hotel” by Kenneth Cameron is only good for one thing: tear out each page and use it to wrap up your soiled sanitary towels or tampons, ladies, before disposing of both! Writers of both sexes: this book is a perfect example of how NOT TO WRITE a novel in the 21st century.
Interestingly, on the hard cover copy I borrowed from my local library there is no “blurb” summarising or even hinting at the plot; instead, we are told on the outer sleeve that author Lee Child thinks the Cameron novel is “beautifully imagined and perfectly executed”.
There's certainly a lesson to be learned here: Be careful, fellow writers, what you recommend to readers...for I shan’t ever read a book written by Mr Child’s as a direct result of his recommendation!
What did Orion Books, the publishers, do to Mr Child? Club him over the head with an encyclopaedia of proper crime writers? The mind boggles if Mr Child thought this was a “perfectly executed “ plot for it contains more tired old clichés and sheer nonsense than I have seen in a very long time. It was a real struggle to finish this book and at the end of it I was utterly disgusted.
Hitch up to the Holmes’ Band-wagon and watch the Money rolling in
You can just picture it: Mr Cameron told his publishers he was going to write a book where the wife of Sherlock Holmes’ creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, investigates a series of gruesome murders in New York. An adventure that will change her life and attitude to marriage forever, the inner book sleeve promises the reader. What a delightfully cute idea, the publishers must have thought!
And what a cunning marketing ploy to tie in with the BBC’s successful “Sherlock” TV series not to mention the recent Hollywood movies about Sherlock Holmes!
Lacking Sense and Sensibility...and a healthy Dollop of Logic
What Mr Cameron probably failed to mention in the synopsis he handed to his editor was that he would indulge in every sick male fantasy along the way, allowing his heroine Mrs Doyle to be brutalised and raped by a crazed villain who was so obvious right from the beginning that this is not a “who-dunnit” but a “when-will-ya-get-to-the-point” type of book right from the outset.
And just when you thought you couldn’t possibly be more irritated at all this rubbishy writing, at the very end the author lets the villain escape and doesn’t even bother to tie together any of the other plot strings. Perhaps the author got just as bored as this reader did?
The plot, incidentally, is clearly based on the infamous real life “Chicago murder hotel” of Dr Henry Howard Holmes. In 1893, HH Holmes built a hotel that he used as a factory for murdering people for their money. His killing spree later escalated to such an extent that he murdered whole families, raping and torturing anyone, no matter what age, just for the fun of it.
Mr Cameron sets the plot for his novel in New York City in 1896 but instead of applying logic to the architectural facets of his book, he tries to make us believe that a tall, large man could snake his way through a narrow, less than 60cm wide gap between walls AND climb up and down ladders and slide through trap doors in these “tunnels” with ease. Ever gone pot-holing, Mr Author? Clearly not.
Who exactly did Mr C. think built these tunnels between outer hotel walls? Snow White’s 7 dinky dwarfs? Your average sized builder wouldn’t have fitted in there, that’s for sure, not even an undernourished working man of 1896!
To fix ladders to brick walls there have to be brackets. In total, ladder and brackets would take up at least another 20 cm. So, the killer is able to chase after two females, who are much smaller than him, without any problems at all, holding a knife in one hand and a lantern in the other, while scampering up and down vertical ladders and flitting through trap doors like he’s a jack-in-the-box in tunnels just 40cm wide in places? I think not!
Incidentally, having suffered severely sprained ankles many times over throughout my life time, I can say with some authority that one doesn’t hobble about with crutches or walking sticks for 2 weeks like 28-year-old Louisa Doyle does in this book nor does one take drugs like morphine for the first 3 days to dull the allegedly excruciating pain – it’s not actually that painful once the foot is elevated and strapped up. Yet another unbelievable plot device by the author and one that could have been so easily researched!
There should be a red flashing Button for “Cliché Alert”
A good writer is able to make us forget their own gender, when describing the adventures of a protagonist possessed of a gender opposite to the writer’s own.
At no point whatsoever in this novel can the reader forget that the author is a man trying to write the story from a woman’s point of view. He so utterly fails to capture what makes a female a woman that at times I wondered if he’d actually ever met one.
When Mrs Doyle craves independence from her controlling husband and seeks the companionship of other females, this author promptly lets her meet a preposterous pre-suffragette woman who tells Mrs Doyle that the “perfect man” is a man who acts out all his fantasies, which in this instance means the Bowery Butcher, the man responsible for the gruesome murders. In other words, when a woman has achieved independence as three of the women in this story have, she talks nothing but nonsense and can’t be anything other than a man hater and lesbian.
At this point in the novel the reader wonders if the author is trying to telling us, Louisa had better put up and shut up and be a meek little wife, tolerating her husband’s irritating, mean and pompous ways instead of looking for a better life and marriage. For no matter how “imperfect” Mr Doyle is as a husband, at least he’s not acting out what a “perfect” man would be like, given half a chance. Yep, given half a chance, men will be cavemen and rapists, we knew that, didn’t we, girls?
Reader question: Is Mr Author actually capable of seeing men and women as real people or can he only recognise 2-dimensional card-board cut-outs?
Just when you thought the “Show us your Tits” Type of Writing had become extinct...
Every time a female character of this book is left to her own devices and without male company, she immediately strips off and dances around her room without wearing a stitch. Given that the plot is set in the winter (the title was a dead give-away) and that 1896 hotels didn’t have the type of central heating we have today, this behaviour is clearly aimed to please male readers – Victorian people’s attitude to nudity was such that they would have bathed in their undergarments and not stripped off at all, never mind how cold or warm the room would have been. Never mind, the MALE author needs his own personal fantasies indulged, what-ho.
Remind me again, when exactly did male chauvinist pig-dinosaurs become extinct?
When protagonist Mrs Doyle meets the character of Minnie Fitch, a woman newspaper reporter or rather the cliché of one, Mr Cameron’s male fantasies completely get the better of him and both women embark on the beginnings of a lesbian relationship instead of doing what they set out to do, namely being comrades in arms against a common foe and becoming friends in the process. Naturally, they need to be punished for daring to be happy without men. They both need to get their come-uppance, and boy, does the author get his male revenge!
How much more cliché can the reader take at this point? You’d better roll up your sleeves and soldier on, because there’s much more to come!
When the reveal finally arrives, every reader with an ounce of sense will have guessed who the killer is. There were only ever 3 men who had the means and opportunity, and it was pretty obvious which one of them would be the killer.
Not content with subjecting his heroine and female readers to horrendous and disgusting ways in which the killer has murdered and disposed of his female victims, the author now “treats” his readers to a graphic description of a rape, the brutalization of two women, one of them Mrs Arthur Conan Doyle herself. What the descendants of historic characters like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his wife must have made of this horrible book one can only surmise.
Personally, I would have visited one of Mr C’s book signings and smacked him with his stupid book where it hurts the most. And then some!
Know thine Enemy
The author tells us that he researched New York City’s architecture as it was in the 1890s – it would have been far better had he spent time researching what motivated Victorian women, what their aspirations were in 1896 and what women really think of men – then and now. For it would have allowed him to present readers with realistic and believable female characters instead of hackneyed comic book fiction versions of women...and men for that matter.
The brutalisation of women in this book is clearly used to "teach them a lesson", both by the villain and the author, one feels. I know this will come as a shock to you, Mr Ignorant Author, but believable female protagonists don’t need to be fictionally raped to understand that men, without exception, are capable of anything, no matter how horrible, disgusting or brutal. There’s a whole wrecked and gasping-for-air Planet Earth all around us with two million years of men’s history, showing us exactly what men are really like every minute of the day. Messrs Hitler, Dr Mengele, Dr H H Holmes and Jack the Ripper were men or had you forgotten, Mr Author?
Lousia’s violation appears to serve as a cruel writer's plot device,forcing her to finally “grow up” as if she wasn't already an adult. This, of course, is utterly revolting,sensationalist, despicable and frankly, in my opinion, tells us everything we never wanted to know about Kenneth Cameron and his warped attitude to women, and obviously nothing about Victorian women and their relationship to Victorian men.
Instead of wasting your time with this novel, borrow a few biographies on courageous historic heroines like Mrs Pankhurst and her suffragettes to remind yourself why women fought for the vote and are still fighting for a better world. Or simply read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "Sherlock Holmes" who, one feels certain, would have bobbed Kenneth Cameron squarely on the nose for this awful book. Failing that, Mrs Hudson would have done!
January 2, 2021
First book of the new year and it's a DNF. I hope that's not a sign! No, it's just a book, and I've promised myself to stop slogging through books I'm not completely enjoying.
I was excited to read this. It's been on my TBR for nearly 7 YEARS. The cover is so moody.
And yet. This book was annoying.
The wife of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gets left behind on her husband's book tour because she sprains her ankle. For which a doctor dopes here up with morphine for 3 days. Talk about overmedicating!
You can tell this book was written by a man. This is supposed to be a murder mystery. There's a guy killing women. He removed their eyeballs, cuts off their noses, lips, breasts and reproductive organs. Then he does other weird things to them.
Louisa Doyle wants to investigate. She feels empathy for the women. And despite obviously enjoying sex with her husband, which is discussed early on, I got the sense that lesbian attractions were coming soon.
For wanting to be headstrong and independent, Louisa is a wuss. Every time she tried to investigate the murders, the physical descriptions nauseated her and we were treated to descriptions of her nausea instead of plot progression.
Where the train derailed for me completely was when Louisa was visiting with someone in her hotel room and then, randomly, out of the blue, the reader is told she suddenly became aware she was menstruating. Then, later, we're treated to a bath scene in which she describes cleansing herself and musing that Sir Arthur doesn't like the smell and won't have sex with her, and it's only blood after all. While she's bathing, someone comes into her room and steals her bloody drawers.
Even later still, she's visiting with a female reporter whose presence excited her and can give her information about the murders, but she "want a sympathy because she's menstruating."
OH. MY. GOD!!! WHO CARES??!!!!!! There's a homicidal maniac on the loose, your husband is a tightass prig and I could care LESS about your famine sanitary products and how the straps holding the pad in place look sexy in a mirror in low light!!! WTF!!??!!!
I made it 169 pages. I came her for the bloody murders, yes, and something vaguely Sherlockian, but it never occurred to me I'd get a period as well. The author gives way more thought to feminine hygiene when her "visitor was in the house" than I ever did.
I assume Louisa finally got off her crutches, off the morphine and off the rag before the end and the killer didn't cut off her female parts, but I'll never know. I have actual things to do. And other books to read.
I was excited to read this. It's been on my TBR for nearly 7 YEARS. The cover is so moody.
And yet. This book was annoying.
The wife of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gets left behind on her husband's book tour because she sprains her ankle. For which a doctor dopes here up with morphine for 3 days. Talk about overmedicating!
You can tell this book was written by a man. This is supposed to be a murder mystery. There's a guy killing women. He removed their eyeballs, cuts off their noses, lips, breasts and reproductive organs. Then he does other weird things to them.
Louisa Doyle wants to investigate. She feels empathy for the women. And despite obviously enjoying sex with her husband, which is discussed early on, I got the sense that lesbian attractions were coming soon.
For wanting to be headstrong and independent, Louisa is a wuss. Every time she tried to investigate the murders, the physical descriptions nauseated her and we were treated to descriptions of her nausea instead of plot progression.
Where the train derailed for me completely was when Louisa was visiting with someone in her hotel room and then, randomly, out of the blue, the reader is told she suddenly became aware she was menstruating. Then, later, we're treated to a bath scene in which she describes cleansing herself and musing that Sir Arthur doesn't like the smell and won't have sex with her, and it's only blood after all. While she's bathing, someone comes into her room and steals her bloody drawers.
Even later still, she's visiting with a female reporter whose presence excited her and can give her information about the murders, but she "want a sympathy because she's menstruating."
OH. MY. GOD!!! WHO CARES??!!!!!! There's a homicidal maniac on the loose, your husband is a tightass prig and I could care LESS about your famine sanitary products and how the straps holding the pad in place look sexy in a mirror in low light!!! WTF!!??!!!
I made it 169 pages. I came her for the bloody murders, yes, and something vaguely Sherlockian, but it never occurred to me I'd get a period as well. The author gives way more thought to feminine hygiene when her "visitor was in the house" than I ever did.
I assume Louisa finally got off her crutches, off the morphine and off the rag before the end and the killer didn't cut off her female parts, but I'll never know. I have actual things to do. And other books to read.
September 9, 2019
New York 1896
When Arthur Conan Doyle, the renowned creator of Sherlock Holmes, takes his wife to the brash, teeming city of of New York, he has no way of knowing that she is about to begin a journey of her own.
Louise thinks she recognises a murder victim’s portrait in a newspaper, and becomes obsessed with the dead woman. Ignored by the police, she turns to Minnie Fitch, a tough newspaper-woman for help. But as more gruesome murders follow, Louise begins to suspect that what connects them is the hotel itself.....
📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚
This is my first review so forgive me if it’s beyond rubbish.
Very slow start, almost joined my DNF pile (it would have consisted of this one book, I don’t like to NOT finish a book regardless of how bad), but one day I picked it up again determined to finish it and something grabbed me and wouldn’t let go. The first 3-4 chapters were mainly all about setting the scene and having a fall (and the chapters are really long)
Once Louisa ‘got up’ the book started moving at a much better pace. By the end of the book I really liked Louisa’s character having taken the bull by the horns and did things that were not seen as ‘the norm’ in the 19th century.
I would recommend it but only with the warning for the first 90-120 pages it’s a bit long winded, but stick with it....not quite sure what I expected, I think I saw Conan Doyle and I think I expected something of a similar standard of writing!! ✍🏻
I gave this ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Hope you enjoy if you choose to read it
When Arthur Conan Doyle, the renowned creator of Sherlock Holmes, takes his wife to the brash, teeming city of of New York, he has no way of knowing that she is about to begin a journey of her own.
Louise thinks she recognises a murder victim’s portrait in a newspaper, and becomes obsessed with the dead woman. Ignored by the police, she turns to Minnie Fitch, a tough newspaper-woman for help. But as more gruesome murders follow, Louise begins to suspect that what connects them is the hotel itself.....
📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚
This is my first review so forgive me if it’s beyond rubbish.
Very slow start, almost joined my DNF pile (it would have consisted of this one book, I don’t like to NOT finish a book regardless of how bad), but one day I picked it up again determined to finish it and something grabbed me and wouldn’t let go. The first 3-4 chapters were mainly all about setting the scene and having a fall (and the chapters are really long)
Once Louisa ‘got up’ the book started moving at a much better pace. By the end of the book I really liked Louisa’s character having taken the bull by the horns and did things that were not seen as ‘the norm’ in the 19th century.
I would recommend it but only with the warning for the first 90-120 pages it’s a bit long winded, but stick with it....not quite sure what I expected, I think I saw Conan Doyle and I think I expected something of a similar standard of writing!! ✍🏻
I gave this ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Hope you enjoy if you choose to read it
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