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Charles Maddox #2
The Solitary House
“[Lynn] Shepherd follows her 2010 debut, Murder at Mansfield Park, which successfully channeled Jane Austen, with an equally satisfying reworking of Bleak House, which Dickens once considered titling The Solitary House. . . . The reader is plunged into a complex but comprehensible labyrinth of deception.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
London, 1850. In the gaslit world of Dickens, Charles Maddox had been an up-and-coming officer for the Metropolitan police until a charge of insubordination abruptly ended his career. Now he struggles to eke out a living by tracking down criminals. Whenever he needs it, he has the help of his great-uncle Maddox, a legendary “thief-taker,” a detective as brilliant and intuitive as they come. And on Charles’s latest case, he’ll need all the assistance he can get. To his shock, Charles has been approached by Edward Tulkinghorn, a shadowy and feared attorney, who offers him a handsome price to do some sleuthing for a client. A powerful financier has been receiving threatening letters, and Tulkinghorn wants Charles to find whoever is responsible. But what starts as a simple case swiftly escalates into something much darker, as Charles cascades toward a collision with a dangerous and unspeakable truth.
“A Victorian tour de force... a must-read.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Fans of Charles Dickens will revel in this engrossing tale... bursting with compelling scenes and characters.”—BookPage
“Intellectually enthralling, with dark twists at every turn... a haunting novel that will have you guessing until the last pages.”—Historical Novels Review
“Shepherd leaves the reader spellbound by masterfully building suspense.”—Booklist (starred review)
London, 1850. In the gaslit world of Dickens, Charles Maddox had been an up-and-coming officer for the Metropolitan police until a charge of insubordination abruptly ended his career. Now he struggles to eke out a living by tracking down criminals. Whenever he needs it, he has the help of his great-uncle Maddox, a legendary “thief-taker,” a detective as brilliant and intuitive as they come. And on Charles’s latest case, he’ll need all the assistance he can get. To his shock, Charles has been approached by Edward Tulkinghorn, a shadowy and feared attorney, who offers him a handsome price to do some sleuthing for a client. A powerful financier has been receiving threatening letters, and Tulkinghorn wants Charles to find whoever is responsible. But what starts as a simple case swiftly escalates into something much darker, as Charles cascades toward a collision with a dangerous and unspeakable truth.
“A Victorian tour de force... a must-read.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Fans of Charles Dickens will revel in this engrossing tale... bursting with compelling scenes and characters.”—BookPage
“Intellectually enthralling, with dark twists at every turn... a haunting novel that will have you guessing until the last pages.”—Historical Novels Review
“Shepherd leaves the reader spellbound by masterfully building suspense.”—Booklist (starred review)
368 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2012
242 people are currently reading
4647 people want to read
About the author
Lynn Shepherd
16 books199 followersLynn Shepherd studied English at Oxford in the 1980s, and got a doctorate degree there in 2006. She always wanted to be a writer and in 2000 she went freelance to see if it was possible to make her dream into reality. Ten years later her dream finally comes true. Murder at Mansfield Park was her first novel.
She describes her genre as 'literary mystery', and in 2012 she since published Tom All-Alone's / The Solitary House, which is inspired by Charles Dickens' Bleak House.
Her third book A Treacherous Likeness explores the dark secrets of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his wife Mary, the author of Frankenstein. It will be published in the UK in February 2013, and in the US in August under the title A Fatal Likeness. More details and a video about the book can be found on www.lynn-shepherd.com
She describes her genre as 'literary mystery', and in 2012 she since published Tom All-Alone's / The Solitary House, which is inspired by Charles Dickens' Bleak House.
Her third book A Treacherous Likeness explores the dark secrets of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his wife Mary, the author of Frankenstein. It will be published in the UK in February 2013, and in the US in August under the title A Fatal Likeness. More details and a video about the book can be found on www.lynn-shepherd.com
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 436 reviews
September 30, 2012
THE HANGDANGLE OF THE APPENDAGE
Here is another Modern Victorian escapade in which all the fetid pustules of scabbiness are left in – indeed, lovingly preserved and appreciated – by the wheedlywise eyebrow-hoisting elbow-jogging don’t miss-that, take-a-look-down-here Cook’s tour guide of a self-consciously 21st century author, which means that every so often Lynn Shepherd will give us comments like
It is as if a switch has been flicked – an analogy which is at least thirty years away, by the way
Or
He thinks no more of owning a gun than of taking laudanum when he has a toothache, though both would brand him as a dangerous delinquent now
Or even
It will not surprise you to find that this part of London is not much frequented by the idly inquisitive (though Charles Dickens himself will make almost exactly this journey in a few months’ time).
Michel Faber in his totally wonderful Crimson Petal and the White brings this possibly-a-little-too-cute technique to a fine frosted Christmascakey mix which is delicious to lick right off of your fingers, I positively deliquesce at the memory. But Lynn Shepherd is like an earnest toiler, she dances not, she ploughs on, no pirouettes but a great deal of plottish barging about.
And then there is the matter of the dialogue. Dialogue that never emitted forth out of any human mouth except the suborned orifices of actors, who had an excuse, they were paid, they had no other job in the offing. Look :
Tulkinghorn (for it is he) : You are interfering in matters you cannot possibly understand.
Charles Maddox : Oh but I do. I understand a good deal more than you realize.
Reader (for it is I) : Groan…
Young Charles appears to have a keen eye for a well-turned cliché – a few pages later we have him saying :
You’ll have to try harder than that, Bucket. You can’t pin this one on me.
[Audience of goodreaders : Oh yes he can! Charles Maddox (swinging round, breaking the fourth wall, realising he’s in a pantomime) : Oh no he can’t!]
Well, we do know that this novel is a kind of riff or spin on Bleak House, and I am sure you can find equally horrible stuff in that brilliant novel, but still, do we have to have foisted upon us the poor dying sweeper Jo who says a lot of stuff like :
I’ve been a-chivvied and a-worried and a-chivvied but now I is moved on as fur as I ever can go and can’t move on no furder. It’s time fur me to go down to that there berryin-ground. Let me lay there quiet wiv him and not be chivvied no more.
( I had to mop up my tears with large-sized teatowels at this point, and wring them out in the bath.)
Actually our author is upfront about her sources - her novel, she explains in the acknowledgement section, takes place in the "space between" Bleak House and The Woman in White, and has more than a helping of Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor stirred in.
Well, I like to poke my appendage into the oily scum of any available Victorian aperture along with the best of you, of that you may be assured, but Tom All-Alone's (retitled The Solitary House for American readers because, you know, they just don't get Dickens references over there) was more like a funfair ghost train than reimagined Dickens. Lots of things went BOO, lots of icky stuff went whizzing by your left ear, spiders and skellybobs hangdangled down in your hair, EW!, and we all went WOO! and came out into the ordinary autumn daylight and found we were still alive and didn't remember too much.
Here is another Modern Victorian escapade in which all the fetid pustules of scabbiness are left in – indeed, lovingly preserved and appreciated – by the wheedlywise eyebrow-hoisting elbow-jogging don’t miss-that, take-a-look-down-here Cook’s tour guide of a self-consciously 21st century author, which means that every so often Lynn Shepherd will give us comments like
It is as if a switch has been flicked – an analogy which is at least thirty years away, by the way
Or
He thinks no more of owning a gun than of taking laudanum when he has a toothache, though both would brand him as a dangerous delinquent now
Or even
It will not surprise you to find that this part of London is not much frequented by the idly inquisitive (though Charles Dickens himself will make almost exactly this journey in a few months’ time).
Michel Faber in his totally wonderful Crimson Petal and the White brings this possibly-a-little-too-cute technique to a fine frosted Christmascakey mix which is delicious to lick right off of your fingers, I positively deliquesce at the memory. But Lynn Shepherd is like an earnest toiler, she dances not, she ploughs on, no pirouettes but a great deal of plottish barging about.
And then there is the matter of the dialogue. Dialogue that never emitted forth out of any human mouth except the suborned orifices of actors, who had an excuse, they were paid, they had no other job in the offing. Look :
Tulkinghorn (for it is he) : You are interfering in matters you cannot possibly understand.
Charles Maddox : Oh but I do. I understand a good deal more than you realize.
Reader (for it is I) : Groan…
Young Charles appears to have a keen eye for a well-turned cliché – a few pages later we have him saying :
You’ll have to try harder than that, Bucket. You can’t pin this one on me.
[Audience of goodreaders : Oh yes he can! Charles Maddox (swinging round, breaking the fourth wall, realising he’s in a pantomime) : Oh no he can’t!]
Well, we do know that this novel is a kind of riff or spin on Bleak House, and I am sure you can find equally horrible stuff in that brilliant novel, but still, do we have to have foisted upon us the poor dying sweeper Jo who says a lot of stuff like :
I’ve been a-chivvied and a-worried and a-chivvied but now I is moved on as fur as I ever can go and can’t move on no furder. It’s time fur me to go down to that there berryin-ground. Let me lay there quiet wiv him and not be chivvied no more.
( I had to mop up my tears with large-sized teatowels at this point, and wring them out in the bath.)
Actually our author is upfront about her sources - her novel, she explains in the acknowledgement section, takes place in the "space between" Bleak House and The Woman in White, and has more than a helping of Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor stirred in.
Well, I like to poke my appendage into the oily scum of any available Victorian aperture along with the best of you, of that you may be assured, but Tom All-Alone's (retitled The Solitary House for American readers because, you know, they just don't get Dickens references over there) was more like a funfair ghost train than reimagined Dickens. Lots of things went BOO, lots of icky stuff went whizzing by your left ear, spiders and skellybobs hangdangled down in your hair, EW!, and we all went WOO! and came out into the ordinary autumn daylight and found we were still alive and didn't remember too much.
September 1, 2015
I was a little apprehensive going into this book, given some of the negative reviews, but I really enjoyed it! Having recently read The Woman in White, I loved the way plot points from that story were woven into this one. I haven't read Bleak House, but now very much want to. I really enjoyed that this story was told by an omniscient narrator with a present-day consciousness. I thought that was unique and lent an interesting perspective. I will read more from this author.
September 21, 2013
I read a review, or blurb (I can't remember which) that described this as a bridge between Bleak House and The Woman in White. It is not. It is an ugly caricature of Bleak House.
I was a little confused as I got a little way into it as many of the Amazon reviews I read praised this book in the extreme. I went back to look at more of these reviews and found the more accurate ones, of which there were surprisingly few. One review simply said 'why read this when you can read Bleak House?" The only answer I can imagine is that Bleak House isn't quite so easy to read so perhaps this is an alternative for readers who are unable to grasp Dickens writing.
Still, if you are going to write a book, be original and if you can't manage that, at least be consistent. Some names change - Ester becomes Hester, Bleak House becomes Solitary House, Mr Jarndyce becomes Mr Jarvis - and so on. Some names remain the same - Mr Tulkinghorn, Inspector Bucket, Lady Dedlock to name a couple. Why, for heavens sake. It is very obvious who the characters with name changes are supposed to be.
Yet whilst some phrases are lifted directly from Bleak House, the plot here is nothing but an ugly parody of the original. Mr Jarvis (Jarndyce) isn't guardian to Hester and Clara (Esther and Ada), he is their pimp and Solitary House (Bleak House) isn't a happy home it is a whorehouse masquerading as a lunatic asylum.
I can only imagine that these books that twist and mock classic literature are written by those who have bad memories of literature classes at school and this is some kind of childish revenge. This particular author can obviously write but perhaps lacks the imagination to come up with their own work so plagiarises the work of those no longer around to defend their copyright.
I was a little confused as I got a little way into it as many of the Amazon reviews I read praised this book in the extreme. I went back to look at more of these reviews and found the more accurate ones, of which there were surprisingly few. One review simply said 'why read this when you can read Bleak House?" The only answer I can imagine is that Bleak House isn't quite so easy to read so perhaps this is an alternative for readers who are unable to grasp Dickens writing.
Still, if you are going to write a book, be original and if you can't manage that, at least be consistent. Some names change - Ester becomes Hester, Bleak House becomes Solitary House, Mr Jarndyce becomes Mr Jarvis - and so on. Some names remain the same - Mr Tulkinghorn, Inspector Bucket, Lady Dedlock to name a couple. Why, for heavens sake. It is very obvious who the characters with name changes are supposed to be.
Yet whilst some phrases are lifted directly from Bleak House, the plot here is nothing but an ugly parody of the original. Mr Jarvis (Jarndyce) isn't guardian to Hester and Clara (Esther and Ada), he is their pimp and Solitary House (Bleak House) isn't a happy home it is a whorehouse masquerading as a lunatic asylum.
I can only imagine that these books that twist and mock classic literature are written by those who have bad memories of literature classes at school and this is some kind of childish revenge. This particular author can obviously write but perhaps lacks the imagination to come up with their own work so plagiarises the work of those no longer around to defend their copyright.
May 15, 2012
How can I rate a book I disdain as contrived, poorly narrated and trying too hard to be clever? It would be a clear case for one star, except that in this instance it was almost compulsively readable. Every time I threw it across the room in annoyance I had to go pick it up and keep on reading. That ability to make a woman as lazy as I am get up from a position of comfort earns Shepherd's second novel a second star (and a half if I could give half stars).
A literary mash-up of "Bleak House" and "The Woman in White", Lynn Shepherd's well-plotted mystery inevitably suffers by comparison to its progenitors. While she does a good job of evoking the energy and squalor of London in 1850, she strains to fit her plot into the interstices between Dickens' and Collins' far better novels. Virtually every character of note from both books gets a least a cameo in "The Solitary House," making the novel feel a bit like a hollywood spectacle from the '50s or '60s -- trotting out every available star for a characteristic walk on bit. Yes, is is fun to realize who everyone is, but aside from the looming figure of Mr. Tulkinghorn and the more ambiguous character of Inspector Bucket, most of the familiar figures are curiosities, not characters. There is also a parallel, oblique second narrative written by one Hester, clearly modeled on Esther Summerson from Bleak House, which is the subtlest and eeriest writing in the book and another good reason to award the extra star.
Literary rebirths aside, the focal point of the story is Charles Maddox, a disgraced ex-policeman struggling to make ends meet as a consulting detective when he gets what appears to be a simple and lucrative commission from the powerful and shady lawyer, Tulkinghorn. Charles is a bit of a hot-headed youngster, but as the case begins to deepen he takes up residence with his great-uncle Maddox, a legendary thief taker who's career (partially chronicled in Shepherd's first book "Murder at Mansfield Park") flourished before the founding of the Metropolitan Police. Sadly, the elder Maddox is clearly slipping into a form of dementia, though in his rare moments of lucidity he provides invaluable assistance to his great-nephew.
Readers will easily infer that Maddox's disease is intended to be Alzheimer's or another form of senile dementia, though these disorders were not so named during the 1850s. Shepherd foolishly opts to makes the connection obvious using a heavy-handed omniscient narrator who intrudes with 21st century perspectives on a story that is unfolding in the present tense in 1850. For example, when we are first getting to know Charles and it becomes clear he has a talent for finding his way through London's fog befuddled streets the narrator breaks in with: "A modern neurologist would say he had unusually well-developed spatial cognition combined with almost photographic memory function." It's a bit like a voice over in a History Channel documentary telling us something we can already see clearly for ourselves. Without this this narrative voice this book would have been much, much stronger. Because of it, the book feels clunky and schoolmarmish despite a tone that is intended to signal that the author and the reader share the same inside jokes.
Still to Shepherd's credit, I read every page, though I threw it against the wall one last time when she blatantly advertised that her next book, or one in the near future, will return to the early days of the first Maddox and his encounter with Percy Bysse Shelley, Mary Wollstencraft Shelley and Frankenstein. I'm going to try not to read it, though I'm ashamed to admit I might have to borrow a copy from the library.
A literary mash-up of "Bleak House" and "The Woman in White", Lynn Shepherd's well-plotted mystery inevitably suffers by comparison to its progenitors. While she does a good job of evoking the energy and squalor of London in 1850, she strains to fit her plot into the interstices between Dickens' and Collins' far better novels. Virtually every character of note from both books gets a least a cameo in "The Solitary House," making the novel feel a bit like a hollywood spectacle from the '50s or '60s -- trotting out every available star for a characteristic walk on bit. Yes, is is fun to realize who everyone is, but aside from the looming figure of Mr. Tulkinghorn and the more ambiguous character of Inspector Bucket, most of the familiar figures are curiosities, not characters. There is also a parallel, oblique second narrative written by one Hester, clearly modeled on Esther Summerson from Bleak House, which is the subtlest and eeriest writing in the book and another good reason to award the extra star.
Literary rebirths aside, the focal point of the story is Charles Maddox, a disgraced ex-policeman struggling to make ends meet as a consulting detective when he gets what appears to be a simple and lucrative commission from the powerful and shady lawyer, Tulkinghorn. Charles is a bit of a hot-headed youngster, but as the case begins to deepen he takes up residence with his great-uncle Maddox, a legendary thief taker who's career (partially chronicled in Shepherd's first book "Murder at Mansfield Park") flourished before the founding of the Metropolitan Police. Sadly, the elder Maddox is clearly slipping into a form of dementia, though in his rare moments of lucidity he provides invaluable assistance to his great-nephew.
Readers will easily infer that Maddox's disease is intended to be Alzheimer's or another form of senile dementia, though these disorders were not so named during the 1850s. Shepherd foolishly opts to makes the connection obvious using a heavy-handed omniscient narrator who intrudes with 21st century perspectives on a story that is unfolding in the present tense in 1850. For example, when we are first getting to know Charles and it becomes clear he has a talent for finding his way through London's fog befuddled streets the narrator breaks in with: "A modern neurologist would say he had unusually well-developed spatial cognition combined with almost photographic memory function." It's a bit like a voice over in a History Channel documentary telling us something we can already see clearly for ourselves. Without this this narrative voice this book would have been much, much stronger. Because of it, the book feels clunky and schoolmarmish despite a tone that is intended to signal that the author and the reader share the same inside jokes.
Still to Shepherd's credit, I read every page, though I threw it against the wall one last time when she blatantly advertised that her next book, or one in the near future, will return to the early days of the first Maddox and his encounter with Percy Bysse Shelley, Mary Wollstencraft Shelley and Frankenstein. I'm going to try not to read it, though I'm ashamed to admit I might have to borrow a copy from the library.
February 25, 2012
To be honest, the only reason I finished The Solitary House is because it was a First Reads win and I felt that I owed it to Goodreads, the publisher and the author to review it.
The story was, for me, very slow and although it isn't a very large book (330 or so pages), it took me a very long time to get through it. Not once when I wasn't reading the book did I really, really want to get back to reading it. It wasn't captivating. I just read it when I had time.
I had two major problems with the novel. The first was the really obscure references the author uses, that I had to frequently put the book down the research. Now, I often do research when reading historical fiction but it's usually for my own entertainment, to learn more about the characters and events in the book. In the case of this book, I felt like I needed to do the research to fully understand and appreciate the novel. For instance, one such reference at the end of the book:
"... a son who bears his father's name, for the man now venerated by some almost to idolatry died an outcast and a pariah almost thirty years before, his heart cut out, and his body burned on an Italian shore." (p. 333 in the ARC)
It took me quite a while googling to figure out the man the author was talking about was Percy Shelley. As with many other of her obscure references, it added absolutely nothing to the story. To me, it almost seems like the author added these references to see if her readers were smart enough to figure them out. I cannot think of another reason why she would have added them.
The other major problem I had with the book was the narrative. It is told from a mostly third person limited POV, following the main character Charles, which is actually written quite well and very atmospherically, both in the setting of the scenes and the writing itself. However, occasionally the author will insert herself (this is not explicitly stated) as an omniscient narrator. To make matters worse, this omniscient narrator speaks from a modern point of view, rather than the Dickensian point of view in which the rest of the novel is written. It was quite distracting. The only real purpose I saw for it was to have the reader know things that the main character Charles does not. However, this could be just as easily achieved by taking a third person omniscient point of view from the beginning and merely showing the scenes without Charles to the reader.
Toward the end of the book, once the mystery started unraveling and the action really started, the book picked up pace a little and the last 80 pages or so went by relatively quickly (relative to the beginning of the book). I also enjoyed how the author wrapped things up at the end and left no loose ends. However, the way very little aspect of the book tied into every other aspect was a little too neat, a little too unrealistic and unbelievable.
I did really like the character of Hester and I enjoyed her narratives. In fact, learning what we do at the end of the book (I won't spoil that part for you, in case you do end up reading the book!), I am very tempted to go back and reread just her narratives.
All in all, unless you are a big Dickens fan or you really enjoy that literary murder type of novel, I wouldn't waste your time.
The story was, for me, very slow and although it isn't a very large book (330 or so pages), it took me a very long time to get through it. Not once when I wasn't reading the book did I really, really want to get back to reading it. It wasn't captivating. I just read it when I had time.
I had two major problems with the novel. The first was the really obscure references the author uses, that I had to frequently put the book down the research. Now, I often do research when reading historical fiction but it's usually for my own entertainment, to learn more about the characters and events in the book. In the case of this book, I felt like I needed to do the research to fully understand and appreciate the novel. For instance, one such reference at the end of the book:
"... a son who bears his father's name, for the man now venerated by some almost to idolatry died an outcast and a pariah almost thirty years before, his heart cut out, and his body burned on an Italian shore." (p. 333 in the ARC)
It took me quite a while googling to figure out the man the author was talking about was Percy Shelley. As with many other of her obscure references, it added absolutely nothing to the story. To me, it almost seems like the author added these references to see if her readers were smart enough to figure them out. I cannot think of another reason why she would have added them.
The other major problem I had with the book was the narrative. It is told from a mostly third person limited POV, following the main character Charles, which is actually written quite well and very atmospherically, both in the setting of the scenes and the writing itself. However, occasionally the author will insert herself (this is not explicitly stated) as an omniscient narrator. To make matters worse, this omniscient narrator speaks from a modern point of view, rather than the Dickensian point of view in which the rest of the novel is written. It was quite distracting. The only real purpose I saw for it was to have the reader know things that the main character Charles does not. However, this could be just as easily achieved by taking a third person omniscient point of view from the beginning and merely showing the scenes without Charles to the reader.
Toward the end of the book, once the mystery started unraveling and the action really started, the book picked up pace a little and the last 80 pages or so went by relatively quickly (relative to the beginning of the book). I also enjoyed how the author wrapped things up at the end and left no loose ends. However, the way very little aspect of the book tied into every other aspect was a little too neat, a little too unrealistic and unbelievable.
I did really like the character of Hester and I enjoyed her narratives. In fact, learning what we do at the end of the book (I won't spoil that part for you, in case you do end up reading the book!), I am very tempted to go back and reread just her narratives.
All in all, unless you are a big Dickens fan or you really enjoy that literary murder type of novel, I wouldn't waste your time.
April 15, 2013
Shepherd aims to write "literary mysteries" and intended this novel to link two books by 19th century writers, Dickens and Wilkie. The result is stilted and pretentious.
June 30, 2013
If you have taste similar to mine, you like reading about filth, grime, offal in the gutters and rat fights, then you will like the squalid details of this story. Certain events that unfold during the mystery itself might be a bit gruesome even for fans of the plague. I gasped out loud at least once, so I know this isn't going to be for everyone, but what book is? Those of you who are not fraidy cats and can stomach a heavy-duty dose of gore will likely enjoy this mystery and find yourself eagerly awaiting the next novel from Lynne Shepherd.
I was concerned at first that I would not enjoy this book because of assumptions I was making based on the fact that Shepherd's previous novel was a spin off or tie in to Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. I have a long time aversion to the classics and when I recently attempted to overcome that aversion I found my aversion exists with good reason. I know I'm in the minority (so please don't tell me how great the classics are and what a shame it is I'm not enjoying them...I've tried to enjoy them...I really have) but I read and hated Pride and Prejudice. With that said I will tell you I was relieved to find 'The Solitary House' does not have a fluffy, husband-hunting bone in its body.
I loved the narration the author chose for this story, the narrator talks to the reader and her foreshadowing is not at all subtle. In fact she tells us directly what to watch out for and she tells us things the protagonist doesn't know, like it's our little secret.
The first half of the story moves rather slowly and I found myself slightly frustrated with its pace. Some elements were subtle and alluded to and I found myself wanting more details. But by page two hundred things were moving pretty quickly and I couldn't put the book down.
I really enjoyed the author's note and the fact that she gives the reader a spoiler warning for it. I missed all references to Charles Dickens (synonymous with the word 'classic'). But I did recognized and feel the influence of Henry Mayhew's 'London Labor and the London Poor'. I have enjoyed every novel I've read that references his work.
If you enjoyed Sheri Holman's 'The Dress Lodger', 'The Fiend in Human' by John MacLachlan Grey, 'The Great Stink' by Clare Clark or 'The Edge of the Crowd' by Ross Gilfillan I think you will enjoy this as well. I'm hoping Shepherd's 'A Treacherous Likeness' coming out next year will feature the protagonist Charles Maddox from 'The Solitary House'.
I was concerned at first that I would not enjoy this book because of assumptions I was making based on the fact that Shepherd's previous novel was a spin off or tie in to Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. I have a long time aversion to the classics and when I recently attempted to overcome that aversion I found my aversion exists with good reason. I know I'm in the minority (so please don't tell me how great the classics are and what a shame it is I'm not enjoying them...I've tried to enjoy them...I really have) but I read and hated Pride and Prejudice. With that said I will tell you I was relieved to find 'The Solitary House' does not have a fluffy, husband-hunting bone in its body.
I loved the narration the author chose for this story, the narrator talks to the reader and her foreshadowing is not at all subtle. In fact she tells us directly what to watch out for and she tells us things the protagonist doesn't know, like it's our little secret.
The first half of the story moves rather slowly and I found myself slightly frustrated with its pace. Some elements were subtle and alluded to and I found myself wanting more details. But by page two hundred things were moving pretty quickly and I couldn't put the book down.
I really enjoyed the author's note and the fact that she gives the reader a spoiler warning for it. I missed all references to Charles Dickens (synonymous with the word 'classic'). But I did recognized and feel the influence of Henry Mayhew's 'London Labor and the London Poor'. I have enjoyed every novel I've read that references his work.
If you enjoyed Sheri Holman's 'The Dress Lodger', 'The Fiend in Human' by John MacLachlan Grey, 'The Great Stink' by Clare Clark or 'The Edge of the Crowd' by Ross Gilfillan I think you will enjoy this as well. I'm hoping Shepherd's 'A Treacherous Likeness' coming out next year will feature the protagonist Charles Maddox from 'The Solitary House'.
January 15, 2018
Loved the first 40% or so and then it just started to feel a bit like talking to some knob at a party who constantly name drops. I love when authors add sneaky little pieces of information into books but this just seemed like showing off and in the end took away from the enjoyment I was actually having. It had so much potential and I’m a bit annoyed about it to be honest.
Update: 15 January 2018
And after looking at other reviews I discovered an article this author wrote in 2014 and I kind of want to take away all the stars and throw the book out the window. I won't though because I'm not that petty. Well I am but I wouldn't want to be seen as childish!!
Apparently adults shouldn't read children's books as "there's so many other books out there that are surely more stimulating for grown-up minds." I'm a Harry Potter fanatic and to be completely honest with you if I'd known about this article I wouldn't have read this book. I'm not saying that I wouldn't have read her because she doesn't like J.K. Rowling. I wouldn't have read her because of the pure bitterness and condescension. I will say the showing off makes sense now though. Someone is full of their own self importance.
Update: 15 January 2018
And after looking at other reviews I discovered an article this author wrote in 2014 and I kind of want to take away all the stars and throw the book out the window. I won't though because I'm not that petty. Well I am but I wouldn't want to be seen as childish!!
Apparently adults shouldn't read children's books as "there's so many other books out there that are surely more stimulating for grown-up minds." I'm a Harry Potter fanatic and to be completely honest with you if I'd known about this article I wouldn't have read this book. I'm not saying that I wouldn't have read her because she doesn't like J.K. Rowling. I wouldn't have read her because of the pure bitterness and condescension. I will say the showing off makes sense now though. Someone is full of their own self importance.
February 8, 2012
Would you accept an invitation to have your hand taken by an omniscient narrator, whose wondrous words have the power to pull you back into Victorian London? A narrator who will tell you things that a Victorian novelist never, never would.
It’s an invitation that you really should accept.
You might think that your hand was being taken by Charles Dickens, because the voice is so very, very like his, and because on the journey you will see places, and meet people, that he wrote of in Bleak House. But you would be mistaken.
I took that hand of that narrator, and I found that I really couldn’t let go.
I met a young detective, Charles Maddox. He had been a policeman but he had been dismissed, for daring to question the deductions of a senior colleague. Establishing himself as a private detective was proving difficult and he had just one case.
Sixteen years earlier a man had sent his pregnant daughter away. He had learned that she had given birth to a daughter and that she had died. And that his granddaughter had gone missing. He wanted her found. It was difficult case, with few leads to follow.
And then another case was offered; a powerful lawyer, Mr Edward Tulkinghorn, summoned Charles to his offices to ask him to investigate a very delicate matter; his client, Sir Julius Cremorne, the head of a city bank, had received threatening letters. The sender had to be found.
I immediately suspected that the young detective was being used as a pawn by powerful men, and he was intelligent enough, good enough at his job, to suspect that too. He took the case.
His investigations take him to the darkest of places and reveals terrible truths. More truths than his powerful employer was willing to allow to be revealed.
I had to follow. He was so determined to establish himself as a detective, and so sure that he had to uncover the truth. But he was fallible and he was vulnerable. I had to watch over him, and I had to know the truth too.
I was scared, of what might happen, of what the truth may be, and so I had to hold the narrators hand very, very tightly.
At times I heard another voice. It was the voice of a young woman named Hester, one of a number of young people raised by guardians at The Solitary House. At first I resented this voice pulling me away from the story I so wanted to follow, but I came to realise that it was important, a fundamental part of the story.
I met so many memorable characters, all perfectly drawn, and all utterly real. It would be quite impossible mention them all, but I must mention the great-uncle with whom Charles shares a name. Maddox senior had been a great detective, but his mind and body had been overtaken by age. But there were glimpses of a great detective as he attempted to counsel his great-nephew, and it was clear that there was a strong bond between the pair.
I read such wonderful prose: compelling storytelling mixed with vivid descriptions. The sights, the sounds, the smells assaulted my senses. And I learned terrible things that I might rather have not known, but that I never for one moment doubted were true. Nothing is more frightening than the evil that men do.
I heard wonderful echoes of more than one great Victorian novelist; and I saw knowledge, understanding, and great love for their works. And I recognised themes that still resonate today.
I was asking questions until the very end, torn between turning the page quickly to find answers and reading slowly to make sure I took in so very many details.
And now I have reached the end, and though I am disturbed by what I read I could happily go back and read all over again.
The mark of a fine novel.
It’s an invitation that you really should accept.
You might think that your hand was being taken by Charles Dickens, because the voice is so very, very like his, and because on the journey you will see places, and meet people, that he wrote of in Bleak House. But you would be mistaken.
I took that hand of that narrator, and I found that I really couldn’t let go.
I met a young detective, Charles Maddox. He had been a policeman but he had been dismissed, for daring to question the deductions of a senior colleague. Establishing himself as a private detective was proving difficult and he had just one case.
Sixteen years earlier a man had sent his pregnant daughter away. He had learned that she had given birth to a daughter and that she had died. And that his granddaughter had gone missing. He wanted her found. It was difficult case, with few leads to follow.
And then another case was offered; a powerful lawyer, Mr Edward Tulkinghorn, summoned Charles to his offices to ask him to investigate a very delicate matter; his client, Sir Julius Cremorne, the head of a city bank, had received threatening letters. The sender had to be found.
I immediately suspected that the young detective was being used as a pawn by powerful men, and he was intelligent enough, good enough at his job, to suspect that too. He took the case.
His investigations take him to the darkest of places and reveals terrible truths. More truths than his powerful employer was willing to allow to be revealed.
I had to follow. He was so determined to establish himself as a detective, and so sure that he had to uncover the truth. But he was fallible and he was vulnerable. I had to watch over him, and I had to know the truth too.
I was scared, of what might happen, of what the truth may be, and so I had to hold the narrators hand very, very tightly.
At times I heard another voice. It was the voice of a young woman named Hester, one of a number of young people raised by guardians at The Solitary House. At first I resented this voice pulling me away from the story I so wanted to follow, but I came to realise that it was important, a fundamental part of the story.
I met so many memorable characters, all perfectly drawn, and all utterly real. It would be quite impossible mention them all, but I must mention the great-uncle with whom Charles shares a name. Maddox senior had been a great detective, but his mind and body had been overtaken by age. But there were glimpses of a great detective as he attempted to counsel his great-nephew, and it was clear that there was a strong bond between the pair.
I read such wonderful prose: compelling storytelling mixed with vivid descriptions. The sights, the sounds, the smells assaulted my senses. And I learned terrible things that I might rather have not known, but that I never for one moment doubted were true. Nothing is more frightening than the evil that men do.
I heard wonderful echoes of more than one great Victorian novelist; and I saw knowledge, understanding, and great love for their works. And I recognised themes that still resonate today.
I was asking questions until the very end, torn between turning the page quickly to find answers and reading slowly to make sure I took in so very many details.
And now I have reached the end, and though I am disturbed by what I read I could happily go back and read all over again.
The mark of a fine novel.
February 10, 2022
Is it "fanfic" or the more grecolatinate "intertextuality"? It's clever, anyway. I guess I just didn't find it clever enough to justify its lack of other qualities. It's fannish in that it relies on either recent or repeated reading of Bleak House to find all the shout-outs, and the audience may well congratulate themselves on spotting them (and the ones to other novels and to well-known historical figures). It's geeky in that there is an afterword that explains all that. (I don't think that the author was well-advised, though, in directly co-opting some canon characters and then creating others that are extremely like canon characters but not the same ones, at the same time the original story is going on in the background: there's an unavoidable sensation that London is populated by doppelgangers unaware of each other!) And this novel is intended to be "darker and edgier" than Dickens; but, in spite of the fact that it can talk at length about prostitution and incest, and can include the words "rape", "buggery", and "pregnant", it really isn't grimmer than Dickens's depictions of crushing poverty, in my opinion. And it does oddly little to correct one of the Victorian author's greatest failings, the lack of a middle ground, in his female characters, between comic monsters and "the angel of the house". There are plenty of victims in Tom-All-Alone's, but no fully-developed women with agency. No sooner is a potentially interesting woman introduced, than she either is killed or vanishes from the story -- particularly striking in the case of the protagonist's putative love-interest, who remains shadowy and wholly objectified seen through his eyes, and is apparently forgotten by the author after the plot has advanced far enough that she ends up in his bed. And twenty-first-century myopia probably explains the author's tendency to confuse innocence with imbecility: the girls at the Solitary House, especially Hester (cf. Esther), parody angelic good girls but they are quite literally feeble-minded, and are contrasted with street-smart prostitutes -- no nuanced depictions of sheltered existences here, a lack of trying for real empathy with Victorian girls. The attempt at a "god's-eye narrative" lurches uncomfortably every time the author inserts a comment from modern perspective, and falls far, far short of its goal of matching Dickens's finely-honed moral outrage.
June 9, 2013
I read this book because I signed up to win the sequel on Library Thing's Early Reviewers program. I was also in the mood for a mystery after gorging on non-fiction and sci-fi this year, so the timing was perfect.
On its own, The Solitary House is a completely solid and well written Victorian mystery. I really enjoyed the omniscient narrator that interjected its own observations and made amusing comments. I liked how all the different pieces slowly unfolded and connected.
However, I have to admit that any deeper enjoyment was probably lost on me for having not read Charles Dickens' Bleak House. As the author explains in her afterward, this book takes place in the space between Bleak House and Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White, and extensively wraps her own mystery into the events of Bleak House.
I've read The Woman in White, and in fact consider it one of my favorites. However, having not yet read Bleak House, I feel I'm doing Lynn Shepherd a disservice because it seems she's done something very skillful and unique here. I feel like I've read Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair without having first read Jane Eyre - completely enjoyable on its own, but missing that extra 'something' by not getting the connections.
On its own, The Solitary House is a completely solid and well written Victorian mystery. I really enjoyed the omniscient narrator that interjected its own observations and made amusing comments. I liked how all the different pieces slowly unfolded and connected.
However, I have to admit that any deeper enjoyment was probably lost on me for having not read Charles Dickens' Bleak House. As the author explains in her afterward, this book takes place in the space between Bleak House and Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White, and extensively wraps her own mystery into the events of Bleak House.
I've read The Woman in White, and in fact consider it one of my favorites. However, having not yet read Bleak House, I feel I'm doing Lynn Shepherd a disservice because it seems she's done something very skillful and unique here. I feel like I've read Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair without having first read Jane Eyre - completely enjoyable on its own, but missing that extra 'something' by not getting the connections.
February 2, 2012
Towards the end of December I spotted a link on twitter to a competition run by the author of a book called Murder at Mansfield Park, not a book I heard of previously. I was in the process of reading Death Comes to Pemberley at the time, which is what alerted me to the competition, as it called for people to read the two books and write a review comparing them. The idea of reading and comparing two Austenesque mystery books appealed to me at once. I quickly downloaded Murder at Mansfield Park to my kindle, and upon finishing the P D James book got stuck in. It ended my reading for 2011 on something of a high –it was a thoroughly enjoyable read – and I wrote my little review and sent it off. A few weeks later I discovered I had won a copy of Lynn Shepherd’s new novel – I rarely win anything so was rather chuffed.
Tom-All-Alones is in fact published today (February 2nd 2012) although I received my copy a couple of weeks ago. The title refers to a cemetery in London, featured in Charles Dickens ‘Bleak House’ – and which was apparently one possible title for Dickens’s tale. This novel is indeed a homage to Dickens and one of his greatest novels.
Some of Dickens characters reappear in this book – Tulkinghorn, Inspector Bucket and Lady Deadlock for instance – while other characters bear some resemblance to Dickens creations but have been re-shaped by Lynn Shepherd. In addition those who have read Murder at Mansfield Park will recognise the name Charles Maddox – although the Charles Maddox of Tom-All-Alone’s is the regency thief takers great nephew. The elder Charles Maddox is now a shuffling old man. His once sharp mind blighted by some disease (Alzheimer’s surely) which brings about long periods of cloudy incomprehension and confusion, followed by glimpses of his former brilliance as his mind comes back into focus.
Charles Maddox is hired by Tulkinghorn to uncover the author of some anonymous letters. Things quickly take a violent turn however, and Charles becomes embroiled in a brutal murder case, even being attacked himself – more than once - in his pursuit of the truth.
This is a wonderfully atmospheric novel. All the sights, sounds and indeed smells of Victorian London practically rise up off the page. In this Lynn Shepherd pulls no punches –the descriptions are vivid and all too real, the horrifying realities that existed for certain sections of society at this time laid bare. As with ‘Bleak House’ itself we have an omniscient narrator – this time one speaking to the reader from a more modern time – acting in a way as a guide through the plot as well as through the confusion of London streets. This 2nd person narrative which is not continually present actually works really well. The majority of the story concerns Charles Maddox and his investigation – and alongside we have the story of Charles’s Uncle Maddox – who Charles moves back in with at the beginning of the novel – and a young black maid who comes to work at the house. Alongside this narrative – we have a first person narrative of Hester – ward of Mr Jarvis. Just as in ‘Bleak House’ these stories weave together eventually. If I am honest, at first, I found the short sections narrated by Hester less enjoyable – but only because they took me away from the thick of the action and the great characters of Charles Maddox his Uncle, Tulkinghorn and the stinking seething filthy streets that Charles must negotiate in his quest. However Hester’s story does become marvellously compelling towards the end of the novel – providing the reader with an amazing twist – that I didn’t see coming and quite literally made me gasp.
Tom-All-Alone’s however , is in no way a re-telling of Bleak House –it is good old fashioned, well written murder mystery – the story of ‘Tom-All-Alone’s’ runs parallel to the story of Bleak House – and Wilkie Collins ‘Woman in White’ - and readers who have never read Dickens’s great novel can enjoy it as that. Those who have read ‘Bleak House’ and know Dickens and Collins’s work however will enjoy spotting the parallels and little references that make this novel such an excellent homage to the great man 200 years after his birth.
This is a massively readable page turner – I read it in great gulps and could hardly put it down. I think those who love historical murder mysteries and those who like their Dickens will each enjoy this novel – but those readers who like both of those things will be doubly delighted.
Tom-All-Alones is in fact published today (February 2nd 2012) although I received my copy a couple of weeks ago. The title refers to a cemetery in London, featured in Charles Dickens ‘Bleak House’ – and which was apparently one possible title for Dickens’s tale. This novel is indeed a homage to Dickens and one of his greatest novels.
Some of Dickens characters reappear in this book – Tulkinghorn, Inspector Bucket and Lady Deadlock for instance – while other characters bear some resemblance to Dickens creations but have been re-shaped by Lynn Shepherd. In addition those who have read Murder at Mansfield Park will recognise the name Charles Maddox – although the Charles Maddox of Tom-All-Alone’s is the regency thief takers great nephew. The elder Charles Maddox is now a shuffling old man. His once sharp mind blighted by some disease (Alzheimer’s surely) which brings about long periods of cloudy incomprehension and confusion, followed by glimpses of his former brilliance as his mind comes back into focus.
Charles Maddox is hired by Tulkinghorn to uncover the author of some anonymous letters. Things quickly take a violent turn however, and Charles becomes embroiled in a brutal murder case, even being attacked himself – more than once - in his pursuit of the truth.
This is a wonderfully atmospheric novel. All the sights, sounds and indeed smells of Victorian London practically rise up off the page. In this Lynn Shepherd pulls no punches –the descriptions are vivid and all too real, the horrifying realities that existed for certain sections of society at this time laid bare. As with ‘Bleak House’ itself we have an omniscient narrator – this time one speaking to the reader from a more modern time – acting in a way as a guide through the plot as well as through the confusion of London streets. This 2nd person narrative which is not continually present actually works really well. The majority of the story concerns Charles Maddox and his investigation – and alongside we have the story of Charles’s Uncle Maddox – who Charles moves back in with at the beginning of the novel – and a young black maid who comes to work at the house. Alongside this narrative – we have a first person narrative of Hester – ward of Mr Jarvis. Just as in ‘Bleak House’ these stories weave together eventually. If I am honest, at first, I found the short sections narrated by Hester less enjoyable – but only because they took me away from the thick of the action and the great characters of Charles Maddox his Uncle, Tulkinghorn and the stinking seething filthy streets that Charles must negotiate in his quest. However Hester’s story does become marvellously compelling towards the end of the novel – providing the reader with an amazing twist – that I didn’t see coming and quite literally made me gasp.
Tom-All-Alone’s however , is in no way a re-telling of Bleak House –it is good old fashioned, well written murder mystery – the story of ‘Tom-All-Alone’s’ runs parallel to the story of Bleak House – and Wilkie Collins ‘Woman in White’ - and readers who have never read Dickens’s great novel can enjoy it as that. Those who have read ‘Bleak House’ and know Dickens and Collins’s work however will enjoy spotting the parallels and little references that make this novel such an excellent homage to the great man 200 years after his birth.
This is a massively readable page turner – I read it in great gulps and could hardly put it down. I think those who love historical murder mysteries and those who like their Dickens will each enjoy this novel – but those readers who like both of those things will be doubly delighted.
January 3, 2012
Tom-All-Alone’s was one of the poorest, dirtiest, most squalid slums in 19th century London. Tom- All- Alone’s is the title Lynn Shepherd has chosen for her second novel.(The Solitary House in the US edition)
It is a gripping noir murder mystery set in foggy Victorian London, in which the characters of Dickens’s Bleak House and Lynn Shepherd’s own creatures come to interact . This is Lynn Shepherd’s second tribute to a British great writer. Her succesful debut book was set , in fact, in one of Jane Austen’s Regency novels and titled, Murder at Mansfield Park (published in the UK, the US and in Spain).
The two novels are linked through the figure of detective Charles Maddox, the brilliant thief taker who solved the complex murder case at Mansfield and is now old and suffering from a terrible desease which makes him perfectly lucid and coherent one moment but furious and lunatic the next. But when old Maddox is lucid, he is still the fine, skillful detective he was. The detective investigating on the complex case at the heart of Tom- All- Alone’s is now his nephew, young Charles Maddox, who was in the Metropolitan Police once but has been unjustly dismissed and wrongly suspected.
Young Charles is hired by Mr Tulkinghorn (the formidabile lawyer of Bleak House) to investigate on a series of threatening anonymous letters sent to an eminent banker, Sir Julius Cremorne, and other illustrious characters in London. Looking for the man who may have sent those letters and also for the reason of the blackmailing, Charles Maddox walks through the most dangerous areas of London, full of drinking dens, thieves, violent people and prostitutes: the London Dickens knew so well, but could only hint at. Bloody sicars and their murders, sexual depravity and vulgar language were to be hidden behind the hypocritical facade of moral respectability. It was the time of hypocrisy and dualism also Stevenson protrayed in his Jekyll and Hyde or Wilde in Dorian’s Gray only apparent perfect beauty.
Lynn Shepherd, free of course from any puritan Victorian perbenism, makes all the terrifyng, macabre, sinister details of the reality of the slums come into the foreground without mitigation. The result is an intriguing investigation, a well built mystery story filled with Dickensean moments , but with a stronger, more realistic portrayal of the social and moral degradation of the time. It’s a world where girls of twelve worked as prostitutes, unwanted babies are carelessly disposed of and those who pose a threat to great men are eliminated without remorse.
Different narrating voices, psychological in-depth and good characterization, well – crafted alternation of light moments to more tragic grim ones, forceful description of people and places make this second novel a confirmation of Lynn Shepherd’s talent.
The story of young Charles Maddox investigating and the story of Bleak House with its characters run parallel at first, then they intersect with one another and culminate into an unexpected, surprising finale. If you’ve read Bleak House you’ll recognize inspector Bucket, Mr Tulkinghorn, Mr Jarvis, Clara and Hester, among others. But if you haven’t, no problem. You’ll be able to fully enjoy Lynn Shepherd’s new murder mystery, as an awesome detective story set in Victorian London with all its old-fashioned, dark fascination.
Thanks to Lynn Shepherd and her UK publisher, Corsair, for granting me a review copy of the novel. This book is going to be released in less than a month as a homage to Charles Dickens in the year of his birthday bicentenary (February 1812 – February 2012).
It is a gripping noir murder mystery set in foggy Victorian London, in which the characters of Dickens’s Bleak House and Lynn Shepherd’s own creatures come to interact . This is Lynn Shepherd’s second tribute to a British great writer. Her succesful debut book was set , in fact, in one of Jane Austen’s Regency novels and titled, Murder at Mansfield Park (published in the UK, the US and in Spain).
The two novels are linked through the figure of detective Charles Maddox, the brilliant thief taker who solved the complex murder case at Mansfield and is now old and suffering from a terrible desease which makes him perfectly lucid and coherent one moment but furious and lunatic the next. But when old Maddox is lucid, he is still the fine, skillful detective he was. The detective investigating on the complex case at the heart of Tom- All- Alone’s is now his nephew, young Charles Maddox, who was in the Metropolitan Police once but has been unjustly dismissed and wrongly suspected.
Young Charles is hired by Mr Tulkinghorn (the formidabile lawyer of Bleak House) to investigate on a series of threatening anonymous letters sent to an eminent banker, Sir Julius Cremorne, and other illustrious characters in London. Looking for the man who may have sent those letters and also for the reason of the blackmailing, Charles Maddox walks through the most dangerous areas of London, full of drinking dens, thieves, violent people and prostitutes: the London Dickens knew so well, but could only hint at. Bloody sicars and their murders, sexual depravity and vulgar language were to be hidden behind the hypocritical facade of moral respectability. It was the time of hypocrisy and dualism also Stevenson protrayed in his Jekyll and Hyde or Wilde in Dorian’s Gray only apparent perfect beauty.
Lynn Shepherd, free of course from any puritan Victorian perbenism, makes all the terrifyng, macabre, sinister details of the reality of the slums come into the foreground without mitigation. The result is an intriguing investigation, a well built mystery story filled with Dickensean moments , but with a stronger, more realistic portrayal of the social and moral degradation of the time. It’s a world where girls of twelve worked as prostitutes, unwanted babies are carelessly disposed of and those who pose a threat to great men are eliminated without remorse.
Different narrating voices, psychological in-depth and good characterization, well – crafted alternation of light moments to more tragic grim ones, forceful description of people and places make this second novel a confirmation of Lynn Shepherd’s talent.
The story of young Charles Maddox investigating and the story of Bleak House with its characters run parallel at first, then they intersect with one another and culminate into an unexpected, surprising finale. If you’ve read Bleak House you’ll recognize inspector Bucket, Mr Tulkinghorn, Mr Jarvis, Clara and Hester, among others. But if you haven’t, no problem. You’ll be able to fully enjoy Lynn Shepherd’s new murder mystery, as an awesome detective story set in Victorian London with all its old-fashioned, dark fascination.
Thanks to Lynn Shepherd and her UK publisher, Corsair, for granting me a review copy of the novel. This book is going to be released in less than a month as a homage to Charles Dickens in the year of his birthday bicentenary (February 1812 – February 2012).
March 11, 2012
I’m going to start by saying I haven’t read Dickens’ Bleak House (although for those of you interested, it does have it’s own Wikipedia page where the synopsis, plot and characters can be found). For me, Tom-All-Alone’s is a stand-alone read with no comparisons.
The story opens on a graveyard where our detective, Charles Maddox, has been called by the police force in case the recently buried body may help him towards solving his one unsolvable case. The description of Charles meeting them at the unofficial burial site leaves you in no doubt that this is not going to be a light and fluffy read!
We follow Charles on his investigations, through Victorian London, with a third person narrative. The writing style is fitting for the time it is set although there are allusions to modern-day conveniences (ie; a comparison to a light being switched on with references that this is in the future) so we infer that it is a modern day narrator. As the story progresses we find out that Charles has his own personal reasons for taking on his first case.
Charles is laid back and he has no arrogance with the skills that seem to come naturally to him. At times appearing self-assured and obstinate, it was good to also see him floundering out of his depth (the first time that comes to mind is in the Tanneries in Bermondsey).
Folly Ditch at Mill Lane c 1840 -the ditch that surrounded Jacob's Island, Bermondsey
Holding his great uncle in such deep respect, it was heartbreaking to watch dementia taking over his life and Charles’ response. My favourite scene is with the two of them discussing the handwritten scraps of paper. This is very cleverly written and for me highlighted the fact that the author has either researched very well or has some experience of dementia.
Running concurrently with this is Hester who has been orphaned and through a guardian, is a resident at Bleak House. This is written in the first person and weaves through the majority of the story in chapters of its own. Hester’s experiences at Bleak House seem to hold nothing in common with Charles’ investigations, which only led to me wanting to turn those pages to found out where she fitted in.
For me, there was also a personal level of interest invested in reading Tom-All-Alone’s. My paternal ancestors had migrated to London 18 years before 1850. I’ve read through some of Charles Booth’s survey into life and labour in London (1886-1903) but this took me back even further and allowed me to briefly step into what life was like. Lynn Shepherd’s descriptions show how thoroughly she has researched.
A dark and atmospheric read, with characters that are three-dimensional and a strong main plot with sub-plots, Tom-All-Alone’s will hold your attention, submerse you in 1850 London and allow you to make comparisons on how life is today compared to the darkness of this time period. I would recommend readers with an interest in history as well as crime to pick up a copy for yourself.
I would like the author for providing a review copy in exchange for an honest review.
The story opens on a graveyard where our detective, Charles Maddox, has been called by the police force in case the recently buried body may help him towards solving his one unsolvable case. The description of Charles meeting them at the unofficial burial site leaves you in no doubt that this is not going to be a light and fluffy read!
We follow Charles on his investigations, through Victorian London, with a third person narrative. The writing style is fitting for the time it is set although there are allusions to modern-day conveniences (ie; a comparison to a light being switched on with references that this is in the future) so we infer that it is a modern day narrator. As the story progresses we find out that Charles has his own personal reasons for taking on his first case.
Charles is laid back and he has no arrogance with the skills that seem to come naturally to him. At times appearing self-assured and obstinate, it was good to also see him floundering out of his depth (the first time that comes to mind is in the Tanneries in Bermondsey).
Folly Ditch at Mill Lane c 1840 -the ditch that surrounded Jacob's Island, Bermondsey
Holding his great uncle in such deep respect, it was heartbreaking to watch dementia taking over his life and Charles’ response. My favourite scene is with the two of them discussing the handwritten scraps of paper. This is very cleverly written and for me highlighted the fact that the author has either researched very well or has some experience of dementia.
Running concurrently with this is Hester who has been orphaned and through a guardian, is a resident at Bleak House. This is written in the first person and weaves through the majority of the story in chapters of its own. Hester’s experiences at Bleak House seem to hold nothing in common with Charles’ investigations, which only led to me wanting to turn those pages to found out where she fitted in.
For me, there was also a personal level of interest invested in reading Tom-All-Alone’s. My paternal ancestors had migrated to London 18 years before 1850. I’ve read through some of Charles Booth’s survey into life and labour in London (1886-1903) but this took me back even further and allowed me to briefly step into what life was like. Lynn Shepherd’s descriptions show how thoroughly she has researched.
A dark and atmospheric read, with characters that are three-dimensional and a strong main plot with sub-plots, Tom-All-Alone’s will hold your attention, submerse you in 1850 London and allow you to make comparisons on how life is today compared to the darkness of this time period. I would recommend readers with an interest in history as well as crime to pick up a copy for yourself.
I would like the author for providing a review copy in exchange for an honest review.
February 5, 2015
WTF?! If Charles Dicken's had never existed, then I would have found this an entertaining read. But since he did exist and since he did write Bleak House I must repeat myself…WTF?!
Dicken's Bleak House
Chapter 3 A Progress
"I have a great deal of difficulty in beginning to write my portion of these pages, for I know I am not clever. I always Knew that. I can remember, when I was a very little girl indeed, I used to say to my doll when we were alone together, "Now, Dolly, I am not clever, you know very well, and you must be patient with me, like a dear!"
Shepherd's Solitary House
Chapter 3 Hester's Narrative
"I have a great deal of difficulty in beginning to write my portion of these pages, for I know I am not clever. I always knew that. Even when I was a very little girl I knew that, and I would confess it to my doll when we were alone together, and ask her to be kind and patient with me."
This is one example of many.
The "author" (not sure she deserves that title) has lifted exact passages and characters directly from Bleak House and distorted them to fit into some other bastardized version. Who does she think she is?! Oh, never mind it's obvious who she thinks she is...
Dicken's Bleak House
Chapter 3 A Progress
"I have a great deal of difficulty in beginning to write my portion of these pages, for I know I am not clever. I always Knew that. I can remember, when I was a very little girl indeed, I used to say to my doll when we were alone together, "Now, Dolly, I am not clever, you know very well, and you must be patient with me, like a dear!"
Shepherd's Solitary House
Chapter 3 Hester's Narrative
"I have a great deal of difficulty in beginning to write my portion of these pages, for I know I am not clever. I always knew that. Even when I was a very little girl I knew that, and I would confess it to my doll when we were alone together, and ask her to be kind and patient with me."
This is one example of many.
The "author" (not sure she deserves that title) has lifted exact passages and characters directly from Bleak House and distorted them to fit into some other bastardized version. Who does she think she is?! Oh, never mind it's obvious who she thinks she is...
not-sure
May 12, 2012This could be interesting, but some of the reviews are harsh...
November 15, 2012
Lynn Shepherd's Tom-All-Alone's (published under the title The Solitary House in the United States) tells the story of Charles Maddox, a detective working in London in the year 1850. Charles has been hired by a man to search for his illegitimate granddaughter, born some years before. Additionally, Charles is hired by attorney Edward Tulkinghorn to discover who is responsible for sending threatening letters to one of Tulkinghorn's upper class clients. As Charles faces a family crisis, he attempts to uncover the answer to these two mysteries, but any progress he makes seems only to lead to more questions and to a cover-up more sinister than Charles could have imagined.
In Tom-All-Alone's Lynn Shepherd recreates the darker side of Victorian London. While it may be easy for contemporary readers to romanticize Victorian culture--probably thanks to the abundance of overly sentimentalized adaptations of Dickens's novels ala Masterpiece Theatre--Shepherd reminds us of the very social issues with which Dickens himself was concerned: disparities in income and social class, the exploitation of children, the marginalized position of women, the social constructions of "madness," and a particular attitude surrounding illicit sex.
Drawing on threads borrowed from Dickens's classic Bleak House and Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White, Shepherd writes a detective story set in the dirty, seedy neighborhoods of Victorian London. In her "Acknowledgments", Shepherd explains that she seeks to "create a `space between' these two great novels, where [she] could locate a new and independent story of my own, and explore some of the same nineteenth-century themes of secrecy, madness, power, and abuse." Additionally, in her "Acknowledgments", Shepherd reminds us that in Bleak House Dickens manages to "create a whole new literary genre: the detective mystery," and it is just such a work that Shepherd herself creates. In addition to her use of Bleak House and The Woman in White, Shepherd is also clearly indebted to Collins's The Moonstone, which is really the first full-blown "detective mystery". What Shepherd really accomplishes, then, is not just a "detective mystery" but a reexamination of our own constructions of Victorian England and the vices endemic to the culture and time period.
Shepherd's writing style feels as though she is consciously trying to be literary in nature, mimicking to some extent the style of Dickens and Collins. This leads to word choice and even sentence structures that may feel a bit foreign and archaic to contemporary American readers. Shepherd's narrator is particularly compelling in that here we have a narrator that is part of both the world the reader lives in and the world of the novel. This is evident when the narrator consciously works to bridge the gap between these two cultures, so different in some significant ways. Interspersed with the main narrative are sections titled "Hester's Narrative", devoted to an entirely different narrator and point of view. While I can see that, again, these sections mirror the writing of Dickens and Collins in some interesting ways, the "Hester" sections are a bit of a distraction and feel forced. In fact, Hester herself feels like a poor reflection of the character of Esther in Bleak House. In the end, the "Hester" sections do not add much to the novel. Thematically, they work to give us a kind of perspective on madness and the effects of sexual abuse in Victorian England (or maybe any culture); they really don't do much to advance the story.
Additionally, the references to Dickens's and Collins' work feel a bit heavy handed at times. For example, Lady Deadlock, a central character in Bleak House, is mentioned several times in passing, yet these references do not add to the novel, do not forward its plot, do not add anything in the way of thematic texture. Rather, they work merely as reminders that Shepherd's novel is itself a kind of retelling of the society that Dickens presents. And yet, one is left with the feeling that Shepherd is trying a bit too hard to be clever and to work in threads borrowed from her literary predecessors. Shepherd's novel would be even more successful if she allowed it to stand on its own.
As a reader, I enjoy a good mystery as well as a nicely constructed period piece. Shepherd manages to give me both of these. Overall, her novel is both engaging and well written. It seems that one trend in contemporary publishing is mysteries that are somewhat comic in tone, presenting smart, snarky detective figures, like Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum. Shepherd avoids this tone, offering a work that is more serious and literary in nature. While this tone, combined with the critique of Victorian society, makes the work compelling for me, some readers will find it off putting, I suspect.
Shepherd has made me want to revisit Dickens's Bleak House and Collins' The Woman in White and The Moonstone. I think that Shepherd would consider that high praise; I certainly mean it as such. I am also eager to read Shepherd's Murder at Mansfield Park as well as any other fiction she may publish in the future.
NOTE: This review was originally published in a slightly different form at the wonderful, useful site Luxury Reading (www.luxuryreading.com). I encourage you to visit Luxury Reading for a wide variety of reviews by a number of talented reviewers. This review was also posted at my web site, Speaking of Books (www.drennanspitzer.com).
In Tom-All-Alone's Lynn Shepherd recreates the darker side of Victorian London. While it may be easy for contemporary readers to romanticize Victorian culture--probably thanks to the abundance of overly sentimentalized adaptations of Dickens's novels ala Masterpiece Theatre--Shepherd reminds us of the very social issues with which Dickens himself was concerned: disparities in income and social class, the exploitation of children, the marginalized position of women, the social constructions of "madness," and a particular attitude surrounding illicit sex.
Drawing on threads borrowed from Dickens's classic Bleak House and Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White, Shepherd writes a detective story set in the dirty, seedy neighborhoods of Victorian London. In her "Acknowledgments", Shepherd explains that she seeks to "create a `space between' these two great novels, where [she] could locate a new and independent story of my own, and explore some of the same nineteenth-century themes of secrecy, madness, power, and abuse." Additionally, in her "Acknowledgments", Shepherd reminds us that in Bleak House Dickens manages to "create a whole new literary genre: the detective mystery," and it is just such a work that Shepherd herself creates. In addition to her use of Bleak House and The Woman in White, Shepherd is also clearly indebted to Collins's The Moonstone, which is really the first full-blown "detective mystery". What Shepherd really accomplishes, then, is not just a "detective mystery" but a reexamination of our own constructions of Victorian England and the vices endemic to the culture and time period.
Shepherd's writing style feels as though she is consciously trying to be literary in nature, mimicking to some extent the style of Dickens and Collins. This leads to word choice and even sentence structures that may feel a bit foreign and archaic to contemporary American readers. Shepherd's narrator is particularly compelling in that here we have a narrator that is part of both the world the reader lives in and the world of the novel. This is evident when the narrator consciously works to bridge the gap between these two cultures, so different in some significant ways. Interspersed with the main narrative are sections titled "Hester's Narrative", devoted to an entirely different narrator and point of view. While I can see that, again, these sections mirror the writing of Dickens and Collins in some interesting ways, the "Hester" sections are a bit of a distraction and feel forced. In fact, Hester herself feels like a poor reflection of the character of Esther in Bleak House. In the end, the "Hester" sections do not add much to the novel. Thematically, they work to give us a kind of perspective on madness and the effects of sexual abuse in Victorian England (or maybe any culture); they really don't do much to advance the story.
Additionally, the references to Dickens's and Collins' work feel a bit heavy handed at times. For example, Lady Deadlock, a central character in Bleak House, is mentioned several times in passing, yet these references do not add to the novel, do not forward its plot, do not add anything in the way of thematic texture. Rather, they work merely as reminders that Shepherd's novel is itself a kind of retelling of the society that Dickens presents. And yet, one is left with the feeling that Shepherd is trying a bit too hard to be clever and to work in threads borrowed from her literary predecessors. Shepherd's novel would be even more successful if she allowed it to stand on its own.
As a reader, I enjoy a good mystery as well as a nicely constructed period piece. Shepherd manages to give me both of these. Overall, her novel is both engaging and well written. It seems that one trend in contemporary publishing is mysteries that are somewhat comic in tone, presenting smart, snarky detective figures, like Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum. Shepherd avoids this tone, offering a work that is more serious and literary in nature. While this tone, combined with the critique of Victorian society, makes the work compelling for me, some readers will find it off putting, I suspect.
Shepherd has made me want to revisit Dickens's Bleak House and Collins' The Woman in White and The Moonstone. I think that Shepherd would consider that high praise; I certainly mean it as such. I am also eager to read Shepherd's Murder at Mansfield Park as well as any other fiction she may publish in the future.
NOTE: This review was originally published in a slightly different form at the wonderful, useful site Luxury Reading (www.luxuryreading.com). I encourage you to visit Luxury Reading for a wide variety of reviews by a number of talented reviewers. This review was also posted at my web site, Speaking of Books (www.drennanspitzer.com).
November 13, 2020
3.5 stars.
It took me a while to get into this, and to get used to the narrative voice which was slightly unusual. However once I got going I thought the plot was really good, and although I haven't read Bleak House I did get a very Dickensian feel from the book. I liked the character of Charles and, once I got used to it, the wry way the narrator spoke about him and what was happening. The resolution was much darker than I originally suspected, but it kept me guessing and turning the pages.
It took me a while to get into this, and to get used to the narrative voice which was slightly unusual. However once I got going I thought the plot was really good, and although I haven't read Bleak House I did get a very Dickensian feel from the book. I liked the character of Charles and, once I got used to it, the wry way the narrator spoke about him and what was happening. The resolution was much darker than I originally suspected, but it kept me guessing and turning the pages.
March 3, 2014
With Tom-All-Alone’s (or, as titled in the U.S., The Solitary House), Lynn Shepherd is deliberately aiming to recreate The French Lieutenant’s Woman for the present day. In other words, she has crafted a postmodern, knowingly sly, shockingly explicit version of the Victorian mystery novel, with Bleak House as her model and inspiration. The result reminds me most of The Crimson Petal and the White and The Pleasures of Men, with all three highlighting brutal serial murders and the squalid underside of everyday life.
Shepherd effectively captures the mood of seedy Victorian London, from the slums of Tom-All-Alone’s to the treasure gallery below Tulkinghorn’s chambers. Her new plot is driven by the researches of Charles Maddox, a young detective dismissed from the police for questioning Inspector Bucket’s methods, and now commissioned by Tulkinghorn to trace the sender of a set of anonymous threats received by Sir Julius Cremorne. Maddox quickly finds that the mystery goes deeper than first assumed.
If there is an aspect of Shepherd’s novel that is unsuccessful, I think it is the disparate treatment of elements from Bleak House. Some characters and their histories are adopted wholesale: Bucket, Tulkinghorn, Lady Dedlock, Jo. Others seem to be the same but are masked by slightly different names: Cook for Krook, Hester for Esther, Mr. Jarvis for Mr. Jarndyce, Miss Flint for Miss Flite, and so on. This allows her to tweak their stories, turning Mr. Jarndyce’s safe haven at Bleak House into The Solitary House, a terrifying baby farm and madhouse. A few bits are borrowed from other sources, such as the story of Anne Catherick and Percival Glyde from The Woman in White, and then various characters are created from scratch, including Charles and his great-uncle, once a detective himself but now suffering with the early stages of a dementia that will remove all memory of the crimes he solved.
Although Shepherd’s use of her literary antecedents is undeniably deft, I find her own characters so convincing that I wish she’d had the courage and innovation to write an entirely fresh story. I don’t think she adds anything to my understanding or appreciation of Bleak House itself; I suppose the advantage for an author is that association with Austen or Dickens (via “fan fiction”) immediately lends his or her book a clout that a little-known novelist would not ordinarily have. The aim of revealing the true extent of the poverty and savagery of Victorian London is an admirable one, but has been done better before; likewise, the strategy of having a playful omniscient narrator who reveals dramatic irony and anachronism has also been done, and possibly distracts the reader a bit from the immediacy of the storyline. I am, of course, delighted to read any modern novel with a Victorian setting, especially one that uses Dickens as a reference point, but I was ever so slightly disappointed with Tom-All-Alone’s.
[I was more impressed with Shepherd after seeing her in person (speaking at Carnegie Library in May 2012, as part of Lambeth Libraries’ annual Readers and Writers festival). I didn’t realize that her previous novel, Murder at Mansfield Park, was in some ways a prequel to Tom-All-Alone’s, focusing as it did on the exploits of detective Charles Maddox the elder, i.e. our Charles’ great-uncle. Whereas with that novel she aimed at a pastiche of Jane Austen’s style, with Tom-All-Alone’s she said she eschewed stylistic imitation but went after plot instead. Her plot runs at a parallel to the story of Bleak House, including the distinctive use of two different narrative voices (the authoritative third person and the first person female perspective), but results in a leaner and darker version of Dickens’s tale. She said she saw herself as standing next to Dickens and saying what he couldn’t, about sex and sanitation in particular. In this she saw her role as more journalistic – along the lines of what Henry Mayhew did with his London Labor and the London Poor. I laud all these aims, and yet I still found the actual outworkings of her plot rather sensational and unnecessarily sordid.]
Shepherd effectively captures the mood of seedy Victorian London, from the slums of Tom-All-Alone’s to the treasure gallery below Tulkinghorn’s chambers. Her new plot is driven by the researches of Charles Maddox, a young detective dismissed from the police for questioning Inspector Bucket’s methods, and now commissioned by Tulkinghorn to trace the sender of a set of anonymous threats received by Sir Julius Cremorne. Maddox quickly finds that the mystery goes deeper than first assumed.
If there is an aspect of Shepherd’s novel that is unsuccessful, I think it is the disparate treatment of elements from Bleak House. Some characters and their histories are adopted wholesale: Bucket, Tulkinghorn, Lady Dedlock, Jo. Others seem to be the same but are masked by slightly different names: Cook for Krook, Hester for Esther, Mr. Jarvis for Mr. Jarndyce, Miss Flint for Miss Flite, and so on. This allows her to tweak their stories, turning Mr. Jarndyce’s safe haven at Bleak House into The Solitary House, a terrifying baby farm and madhouse. A few bits are borrowed from other sources, such as the story of Anne Catherick and Percival Glyde from The Woman in White, and then various characters are created from scratch, including Charles and his great-uncle, once a detective himself but now suffering with the early stages of a dementia that will remove all memory of the crimes he solved.
Although Shepherd’s use of her literary antecedents is undeniably deft, I find her own characters so convincing that I wish she’d had the courage and innovation to write an entirely fresh story. I don’t think she adds anything to my understanding or appreciation of Bleak House itself; I suppose the advantage for an author is that association with Austen or Dickens (via “fan fiction”) immediately lends his or her book a clout that a little-known novelist would not ordinarily have. The aim of revealing the true extent of the poverty and savagery of Victorian London is an admirable one, but has been done better before; likewise, the strategy of having a playful omniscient narrator who reveals dramatic irony and anachronism has also been done, and possibly distracts the reader a bit from the immediacy of the storyline. I am, of course, delighted to read any modern novel with a Victorian setting, especially one that uses Dickens as a reference point, but I was ever so slightly disappointed with Tom-All-Alone’s.
[I was more impressed with Shepherd after seeing her in person (speaking at Carnegie Library in May 2012, as part of Lambeth Libraries’ annual Readers and Writers festival). I didn’t realize that her previous novel, Murder at Mansfield Park, was in some ways a prequel to Tom-All-Alone’s, focusing as it did on the exploits of detective Charles Maddox the elder, i.e. our Charles’ great-uncle. Whereas with that novel she aimed at a pastiche of Jane Austen’s style, with Tom-All-Alone’s she said she eschewed stylistic imitation but went after plot instead. Her plot runs at a parallel to the story of Bleak House, including the distinctive use of two different narrative voices (the authoritative third person and the first person female perspective), but results in a leaner and darker version of Dickens’s tale. She said she saw herself as standing next to Dickens and saying what he couldn’t, about sex and sanitation in particular. In this she saw her role as more journalistic – along the lines of what Henry Mayhew did with his London Labor and the London Poor. I laud all these aims, and yet I still found the actual outworkings of her plot rather sensational and unnecessarily sordid.]
June 27, 2012
Tom-All-Alone’s is both clever and ambitious, with a compelling story, great characters and a vividly realised 1850s London setting. It’s the sort of book that would repay re-reading, possibly several times. It’s also a better book then the author’s previous novel, Murder at Mansfield Park. Yet while I happily gave that book 5 stars, Tom-All-Alone’s just misses that mark because of its use of an omniscient modern narrator. While this is a playful and, again, clever conceit, I admired it without being able to forget about it, and it did pull me out of the story a couple of times.
There’s a lot going on in this book. When we first meet hard up private detective Charles Maddox, he has recently left the Metropolitan detective force under a cloud. He is hunting a client’s missing daughter with grim determination and little expectation of success. Then the powerful lawyer Edward Tulkinghorn hires Maddox to discover who is harassing a client with threatening letters. Thanks to the omniscient narrator, we learn straightaway that this deceptively simple job hides a sinister secret, one that will test Maddox’s detective skills – and his tenacity – to the full.
Often, when historical novels try too hard to pack in the colourful background stuff, it can overpower the story. Not so here. Maddox junior and Maddox senior are both flesh and blood characters you’d like to spend time with. The scenes between them are a joy, even while heart wrenching. There are also many stand out scenes, as well as some cracking twists. The murder of one character in particular was timed perfectly yet took me completely by surprise. That’s brilliant writing, with only the narrative voice providing the occasional duff note.
Just as with Murder at Mansfield Park, I couldn’t stop reading this novel, even at the expense of my beauty sleep. I can’t wait for the next one.
There’s a lot going on in this book. When we first meet hard up private detective Charles Maddox, he has recently left the Metropolitan detective force under a cloud. He is hunting a client’s missing daughter with grim determination and little expectation of success. Then the powerful lawyer Edward Tulkinghorn hires Maddox to discover who is harassing a client with threatening letters. Thanks to the omniscient narrator, we learn straightaway that this deceptively simple job hides a sinister secret, one that will test Maddox’s detective skills – and his tenacity – to the full.
Often, when historical novels try too hard to pack in the colourful background stuff, it can overpower the story. Not so here. Maddox junior and Maddox senior are both flesh and blood characters you’d like to spend time with. The scenes between them are a joy, even while heart wrenching. There are also many stand out scenes, as well as some cracking twists. The murder of one character in particular was timed perfectly yet took me completely by surprise. That’s brilliant writing, with only the narrative voice providing the occasional duff note.
Just as with Murder at Mansfield Park, I couldn’t stop reading this novel, even at the expense of my beauty sleep. I can’t wait for the next one.
April 7, 2020
This is the worst book I have ever read in my entire life and that includes my friend's ex-boyfriend's quarter-finished zombie apocalypse story and it was hand scrawled in chicken scratch.
Why:
- Pretentious is an understatement for the writing.
- Plagiarism shouldn't be celebrated as honouring a great writer (who has long since passed and the copyrights are up and therefore can't keep you from basically xeroxing entire paragraphs for your book).
- A good story is not based on how well you've researched a specific time/genre, but how well you can tell a story. The plot had major holes and stalled more often than an '88 Hyundai with the alternator on the way out. Then at the end it picked up so fast and ended so abruptly that it almost gives you whiplash. You may also get a sudden sense of relief and ecstacy that you finally finished it and never have to read it again.
- The way she inserted herself in present day as narrator randomly to say something we could figure out on our own was like breaking the fourth wall in theatre. It is extremely tricky and needs third degree black belt level skills in charisma and talent to be pulled off well. In this book it came off like your step-dad barged in with a plate of bagel bites while you and your friends were playing a ruthlessly fun game of Cards Against Humanity talking about when he was a teenager. Buzz = killed. Take your white crispy boy shod feet and corny anecdotes out of my room, Steve.
Taste is subjective though, so one person's torture of a read could be your next favourite brand of toilet paper. If you like Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, just do yourself a favour and re-read their stuff. They at least had the gumption, talent, and wit to write their own work.
Why:
- Pretentious is an understatement for the writing.
- Plagiarism shouldn't be celebrated as honouring a great writer (who has long since passed and the copyrights are up and therefore can't keep you from basically xeroxing entire paragraphs for your book).
- A good story is not based on how well you've researched a specific time/genre, but how well you can tell a story. The plot had major holes and stalled more often than an '88 Hyundai with the alternator on the way out. Then at the end it picked up so fast and ended so abruptly that it almost gives you whiplash. You may also get a sudden sense of relief and ecstacy that you finally finished it and never have to read it again.
- The way she inserted herself in present day as narrator randomly to say something we could figure out on our own was like breaking the fourth wall in theatre. It is extremely tricky and needs third degree black belt level skills in charisma and talent to be pulled off well. In this book it came off like your step-dad barged in with a plate of bagel bites while you and your friends were playing a ruthlessly fun game of Cards Against Humanity talking about when he was a teenager. Buzz = killed. Take your white crispy boy shod feet and corny anecdotes out of my room, Steve.
Taste is subjective though, so one person's torture of a read could be your next favourite brand of toilet paper. If you like Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, just do yourself a favour and re-read their stuff. They at least had the gumption, talent, and wit to write their own work.
July 20, 2019
I finished this book less than half an hour ago and I am still suspended in its world, not quite sure what is reality and what is just fiction.
I started reading it almost a month ago, picking it up here and there, only reading a few pages each time and then not touching it for over week. I can't explain why I was so reluctant to fully commit to this story at first, but it has become utterly clear to me now. Once you give it your full attention, it will not let you go until long after you have turned the last page.
The main character is richly created. He shows weakness and strength, and moreover does not seem superhuman.
The description of London in 1850 is absolutely remarkable, not only from a scenic point of view, which in this case includes the ugly truth of the industrial revolution, but also its raw and factual statements of life in an overcrowded city, far removed from the typical Victorian proprieties, ribbons and respectful courtships.
I tremendously enjoyed the subtle inclusions of Charles Dickens references and the author's skill and talent to incorporate elements of his writing style within her own.
With respect to the actual plot of this detective story, I was rather clueless of the extent and depth of the conspiracy the main character was to solve.
This book is a great detective story that, I think, fans of this genre would appreciate with the added bonus of including many snippets of information and points of interests to those, who are also interested in Victorian London and Victorian literature.
ElliotScribbles
I started reading it almost a month ago, picking it up here and there, only reading a few pages each time and then not touching it for over week. I can't explain why I was so reluctant to fully commit to this story at first, but it has become utterly clear to me now. Once you give it your full attention, it will not let you go until long after you have turned the last page.
The main character is richly created. He shows weakness and strength, and moreover does not seem superhuman.
The description of London in 1850 is absolutely remarkable, not only from a scenic point of view, which in this case includes the ugly truth of the industrial revolution, but also its raw and factual statements of life in an overcrowded city, far removed from the typical Victorian proprieties, ribbons and respectful courtships.
I tremendously enjoyed the subtle inclusions of Charles Dickens references and the author's skill and talent to incorporate elements of his writing style within her own.
With respect to the actual plot of this detective story, I was rather clueless of the extent and depth of the conspiracy the main character was to solve.
This book is a great detective story that, I think, fans of this genre would appreciate with the added bonus of including many snippets of information and points of interests to those, who are also interested in Victorian London and Victorian literature.
ElliotScribbles
December 20, 2012
i had to mark this down partly because it is not very good and also because if not the book will have more stars than its sources of Bleak House and The Woman in White which would be ridiculous .
On the face of it this novel had all the elements that i would like such as a Victorian London setting , a quirky detective , awful deeds in high places and the recreation of Dickens's world .
However I suddenly realised about a third of the way through that i was beginning to get bored , bored at the pedestrian pace , bored with the characters , bored with the supposed horrors of the story , and bored with the detached academic POV approach . The author obviously has done her research but the problem is that she has little story telling talent . There are so many loose strands that go nowhere , so many characters who appear and disappear adding nothing to the story and worst of all for a murder mystery there is no tension and precious little mystery .
The fact that it has echoes of Dickens , Wilkie Collins and John Fowles and is told from the point of view of a modern observer is neither here nor there really .
Lastly I have had enough paedophilia for the time being .
On the face of it this novel had all the elements that i would like such as a Victorian London setting , a quirky detective , awful deeds in high places and the recreation of Dickens's world .
However I suddenly realised about a third of the way through that i was beginning to get bored , bored at the pedestrian pace , bored with the characters , bored with the supposed horrors of the story , and bored with the detached academic POV approach . The author obviously has done her research but the problem is that she has little story telling talent . There are so many loose strands that go nowhere , so many characters who appear and disappear adding nothing to the story and worst of all for a murder mystery there is no tension and precious little mystery .
The fact that it has echoes of Dickens , Wilkie Collins and John Fowles and is told from the point of view of a modern observer is neither here nor there really .
Lastly I have had enough paedophilia for the time being .
September 26, 2013
Lynn Shepherd displays a touch of genius in her ability to create the atmosphere of London in 1850. Quite often I felt as if I should bend down and clean muck from my slippers or get up and wash my hands as I sat by my fireplace, patting my cat, and reading The Solitary House. Fortunately Shepherd's omniscient narrator occasionally lifts the reader's imagination -- beyond the nitty-gritty, the gloom, the violence and the demented minds of her cast of well-drawn characters -- by interjecting playful reminders: you are safe from these deviants and these appalling events. "I suspect you've been expecting this. I suspect, in fact, that you've been expecting it for a great deal longer than at least one of the two people involved. But the fact that it has now happened is only half the story. You will want to know how, and you will want to know why -- or at the very least, why now." And indeed, we do. At least, I did. Despite Tulkinghorn's best efforts, Maddox does unravel the foul conspiracy, and a shocker it is. But those are the narrow laneways and narrow staircases "you" must tread for yourself.
April 29, 2016
It's difficult to know what to rate this book. I found the original characters compelling and the writing style fairly unique and engaging. I think the book's major weakness comes from having parts of the story be considered "missing scenes" from two already established classic novels (Bleak House and Woman in White) without any explanation or real impact on the plot. On one hand, I appreciate the author referencing other novels without feeling the need to awkwardly re-tell them, but on the other hand, having never read either of the other novels, these "missing scenes" are confusing at best, and at worst downright distracting and without resolution.
I would be curious to read the next installment, or any future installment, where the author doesn't rely on existing narratives/characters. I enjoy her original characters and her storytelling style. I'm sure it would be enjoyable as a purely original work.
I would be curious to read the next installment, or any future installment, where the author doesn't rely on existing narratives/characters. I enjoy her original characters and her storytelling style. I'm sure it would be enjoyable as a purely original work.
will-not-read-finish
November 19, 2015DNF at 50% .
I can't, I'm just so bored with it. The style of writing, present tense third person is so distracting that I literally can't focus on it. Whomever thought that was a good idea? I think the only reason I made it this far was because there was a different POV which was in past tense.
Also, I know this was supposed to emulate Dickens, but even though Dicken's was wordy, all of his scenes and plots were relevant to the story. Like half the shit happening in this story didn't appear relevant to the plot itself and was more of an exploration of character or setting.
I don't want to bother finishing it and I won't.
I can't, I'm just so bored with it. The style of writing, present tense third person is so distracting that I literally can't focus on it. Whomever thought that was a good idea? I think the only reason I made it this far was because there was a different POV which was in past tense.
Also, I know this was supposed to emulate Dickens, but even though Dicken's was wordy, all of his scenes and plots were relevant to the story. Like half the shit happening in this story didn't appear relevant to the plot itself and was more of an exploration of character or setting.
I don't want to bother finishing it and I won't.
September 12, 2014
Basically, Lynn Shepherd took a smelly dump on Dickens and Bleak House. This book is not worth your time in any way -- a definite do NOT read. It's biggest sin is ruining the character of Tulkinghorn for life, and I'm actually a bit angry about it. A bunch of "shocking" crime is detailed to try to cover up bad writing and character development -- incest, abuse, sexual predators, violent crime, bodily dismemberment, probably others that I can't think of right now. There are so many good books out there, go read those and skip this.
August 16, 2012
If you like Victorian mystery novels and are a fan of Dickens' Bleak House and/or Wilkie Collins' The Woman In White (one of my favorites) you'll enjoy this dark, atmospheric "whodunnit".
Great writing with a story line far from predictable and a fantastic ending.
Can't wait to see what this author has coming out next.
(The Kindle edition includes both The Woman in White and Bleak House as an added bonus.)
Great writing with a story line far from predictable and a fantastic ending.
Can't wait to see what this author has coming out next.
(The Kindle edition includes both The Woman in White and Bleak House as an added bonus.)
July 19, 2012
Writer seems to have just included gory details just for the sake of having it in the book.
March 30, 2017
At first I wasn't sure about this book, but by the time I was halfway through I realised I was thoroughly enjoying it. This is a very clever tale , with more than a subtle nod to Dickens' Bleak House , as we see some very familiar characters and locations in a new light. Detective Charles Maddox becomes embroiled in a sinister case at the request of the rather unpleasant lawyer, Tulkington, but is not satisfied by what he finds and as he persists in digging deeper he risks his own life and the lives of those who help him.
The writing is incredibly descriptive, bringing the sights sounds and especially the smells of 1850's London vividly and viscerally to life for the reader. At first I felt the attempts to link the book to Bleak House were too obvious, so that it almost felt like parody, without the humour, but this did get better as the book went on and the differences became more clear. One think I particularly liked was the occasional direct addressing of the reader by the author, almost as aside, or like breaking the fourth wall in theatre or film, though sparingly used it was a nice touch.
The writing is incredibly descriptive, bringing the sights sounds and especially the smells of 1850's London vividly and viscerally to life for the reader. At first I felt the attempts to link the book to Bleak House were too obvious, so that it almost felt like parody, without the humour, but this did get better as the book went on and the differences became more clear. One think I particularly liked was the occasional direct addressing of the reader by the author, almost as aside, or like breaking the fourth wall in theatre or film, though sparingly used it was a nice touch.
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