By Gaslight

by Steven Price

A literary tour de force of a detective's ceaseless hunt for an elusive criminal

London, 1885. Three years before the Whitechapel killings, London is a city of fog and darkness. A severed head is dredged from the Thames; ten miles away, a woman's body is discovered on Edgeware Road. The famed American detective William Pinkerton is summoned by Scotland Yard to investigate. The dead woman fits the description of a grifter Pinkerton had been pursuing for a long time--someone he believed would lead him to a man he has been hunting since his father's death.

Edward Shade is an industrialist without a past, a fabled con, a thief of other men's futures--he seems a ghost, a man of smoke. The obsessive hunt for him that began in the last days of the Civil War becomes Pinkerton's inheritance. What follows is an epic journey of secrets, deceit, and betrayals. Above all, it is the story of the most unlikely of bonds: between Pinkerton, the greatest detective of his age, and Shade, the one criminal he cannot outwit.

Steven Price's By Gaslight is a riveting, atmospheric portrait of a man on the brink. Moving from the diamond mines of South Africa to the fog-enshrouded streets of Victorian London, the novel is a journey into a cityscape of grief, trust, and its breaking, where what we share can bind us even against our better selves.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery, Fiction, Historical, Crime, Thriller, Victorian

731 pages, Hardcover

First published August 23, 2016

About the author

Steven Price is a Canadian poet and novelist.

He graduated from the University of Victoria with a BFA in 2000, and from the University of Virginia with an MFA, in poetry.

Price's first collection of poems, Anatomy of Keys (2006), won Canada's 2007 Gerald Lampert Award for Best First Collection, was short-listed for the BC Poetry Prize, and was named a Globe and Mail Book of the Year. His first novel, Into That Darkness (2011), was short-listed for the 2012 BC Fiction Prize. His second collection of poems, Omens in the Year of the Ox (2012), won the 2013 ReLit Award.

Price teaches poetry and fiction at the University of Victoria, where he lives with his partner, novelist Esi Edugyan.

Reviews

[Paromjit · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an outstanding piece of historical fiction but it is one that demands commitment from the reader. It is a long read at over 700 pages long and it is not fast paced. It is a book that needs to be slowly savoured for its beautiful and atmospheric writing, so a reader needs to relax and settle into it. It is set in 1885, in a dark, smoke ridden, foggy London with its biting poverty, dirt, stink, gaslights, opium dens and the underbelly of the criminal underworld referred to as the flash world. William Pinkerton, agency detective, is the son of the now deceased Allan Pinkerton, overflowing with grief and unresolved emotions for his famous, but brutal father. He is in London to find the mythical and ghostly Edward Shade, a man that eluded his father in his otherwise successful career as a detective. There is no evidence that Shade exists and what there is suggests he is long dead. Adam Foole, a man who mourns a lost love, Charlotte, arrives in London from the United States on receiving a letter that she needs his help. These two broken men bring the spirit of the Wild West to London as their separate quests lead to the two men meeting and joining forces.

William's hunt for Shade has him seeking Charlotte, rumoured to know Shade. To escape William, Charlotte jumps off a bridge. A woman's body is discovered cut into pieces in various locations. It is identified as Charlotte, Adam is overtaken by the deepest grief and a need to know
what happened and who did it. He is supported by an adept street skilled young girl, Molly, and the huge man that is Fludd. They are able grifters and fit perfectly into London's flash world. In a story that provides a detailed background of William, Allan, Edward and Adam, we go back to diamonds in South Africa in 1874 where Foole meets Charlotte and her uncle, Martin, the Ohio hunt for John Reno by Allan in 1868, the brutal American Civil War, Allan's role in espionage, and Allan's deep and enduring relationship with the young Edward. This is a story of ghosts as William tries to get to know who exactly his father was, and Adam comes to understand more deeply the exact nature of Charlotte, a woman who inspired a life long love in him.

As the novel goes back and forth in time, we come to more closely observe the lives and characters of William and Adam, both lost and haunted men whose paths collide in London. The author paints a picture of a place and time that just drips with atmosphere and multilayered, complex characters that fascinate and engage the reader. Hanging over the proceedings in London is the larger than life, but dead Allan Pinkerton and the below the radar, mysterious and mystical Edward Shade. A wonderful, engaging and entertaining read. However, the author does play fast and loose with punctuation, for example, there are no speech marks. Personally, I did not find this a too great a hindrance and it did not prevent my enjoyment of the book. I highly recommend this book to those who like big books and a mixture of historical, mystery and adventure fiction that is beautifully written. Many thanks to Oneworld Publications for an ARC.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I originally bought this book because of the cover. I mean look at that cover. It had this backstreet London/Victorian feel to it. When The Chunksters Group picked this as their first quarter read I thought it was the perfect opportunity to read. The schedule was to read about 40-60 pages a week. I completely failed at this schedule. I ended up switching to the audio, narrated by the very talented John Lee. There are a ton of details and the story moves back and forth in time, the only way I could keep them straight was to read it in large chunks. So my apologies to the chunksters.

This is a brilliant story. Price wove the tale together expertly. It starts out a bit slow and it is confusing in places but in the end it is so worth it when you see exactly what he has done. Despite the length of this I hope to be able to listen to it again sometime. Highly recommended for people who like Victorian London, complicated long, non-linear stories.

[Erin Clemence · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this novel for free from Goodreads. Special thanks to Goodreads and the publishers.
“By Gaslight” is, by all measure, a police crime novel. There is a detective, a mysterious woman, and a shady criminal. The only difference in “Gaslight” is that it also includes opium dens and horse-drawn carriages, which was par for the course in 19th century London.
“By Gaslight” has two protagonists- William Pinkerton, the detective who has been seeking notorious criminal Edward Shade, following in the elusive footsteps of his father, former Army Major and high-ranking police detective. Then of course there is Adam Foole, a man with no real past who lives a life of thievery with two equally mysterious counterparts. The novel focuses on the separate lives of these two men and the unique ways in which their lives intertwine.
I really wanted to enjoy this novel and for the most part, it was readable. The book itself was beautiful and the pages were of a quality that any book lover can appreciate (the kind that smell divine and make it easy to read or scale with a bookmark). However, the story was lackluster. The plot started out strong, and finished strong also, but there was a large gap in the middle where I almost gave up. I would’ve too- if it hadn’t been necessary to finish the novel so that I could complete this review. There was no need for this novel to be as long as it was (730 pages), and a large chunk could’ve been cut out of the middle.
Perhaps my biggest problem with this novel was Steven Price’s absolute refusal to use punctuation properly. He limited the use of commas to a bare minimum and did not use quotation marks-- at all. I do not know if this was as a result of lack of editing, or if Price was trying to do something unique but it made the novel difficult to follow, especially when the novel had a tendency to jump back and forth between time periods. It definitely requires a reader’s full attention.
I did give this novel three stars, as I really did enjoy the characters. I would’ve loved to have learned more about Molly (her upbringing, etc) and what happened with her after the novel ended. William and Adam were also interesting, and the way their stories ended was satisfying and almost humorous (in a good way). I may entertain the idea of reading another of Price’s novels just to see the difference, and maybe he can persuade me to become a fan.

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

My Mister Porter used to say, Ever day you wake up you got to ask youself what is it you huntin for.

You can certainly tell that Steven Price, author of By Gaslight, is a poet as well as a novelist: not because his writing is florid or artsy, but because his word choices are just so precise; his descriptions evocative; his sentences rhythmical, punchy, masculine. In this historical epic, we readers are deposited in the filth and muck of the 19th century, witness to some of that era's most gripping events, and through it all, are encouraged to ruminate on the limits of justice and revenge, love and grief and duty. Despite weighing in at over 700 pages, this story flew by too quickly, the central mysteries keeping me intrigued right to the end. By Gaslight is a thoroughly satisfying read. (Because this is an ARC, my apologies if these quotes aren't in their final form.)

He was not the law. No matter. In America there was not a thief who did not fear him. By his own measure he feared no man living and only one man dead and that man his father.

By Gaslight is told from two alternating points of view: In the first, we meet an American detective who has come to London in order to tie up some loose ends he discovered in his recently deceased father's journals. If only he could find Edward Shade – a conman so successful and shadowy that even London's flash underworld speaks of him as part myth – William could close the case and return to his home and family. The best lead he finds is a Charlotte Reckitt – a rumoured grifter in her own right – but pinning her down proves difficult.

Only the soft-headed think a thing looks like what it is.

In the second storyline, we meet Adam Foole: an international businessman who is returning to London after receiving a letter from that same Miss Reckitt; a woman he had loved and been conned by a decade earlier. Although Foole has been known to deal at the edges of the law himself, he soon realises that the best way to find Charlotte is to team up with the American detective. There is much dramatic irony as the reader learns what these two characters are hiding from one another, and as the story progresses, we discover that their lives have intersected in more ways than even they are aware of.

While that is, loosely, the plot, By Gaslight also deals with: the American Civil War (and the early Secret Service that each side utilised to infiltrate the other's lines; and the use of hot air balloons in airborne surveillance); scenes from the Underground Railroad; tense tales of bringing Wild West outlaws to justice; the dangerous Boers and their South African diamond trade; London's opium dens and sewers, full of muckrakers and Berserkers; a seance; early CSI-type forensics; the brutal British penal system; and a peek inside the walls of Scotland Yard. This book is a mystery, a thriller, a love story, a sting. There are numerous stories of orphans and, whether in America or England, the horrifying conditions that poor children were forced to live under. There are overworked, bony horses everywhere, a slick of muck on every cobblestoned street, waifs in rags begging for coppers, and hanging over all, the sallow orange glow of gaslamps (made sicklier in London by its persistent, chilly, soot-filled fog). These stories are exciting, shocking, and gloomy – and with the characters always tired and grimy and uncertain, the atmosphere of the whole thing made me anxious (which is a useful state to be in when reading a long mystery; I kept reading and reading in the hopes that something would improve or resolve itself).

He closed his eyes and he saw. A quarter century had passed and still he closed his eyes and saw. Darkness like a fog pouring over frozen cobblestones. The creak of chains sawing from hooks in alleys, eyes in the shadows stagnant and brown as smoke. He could smell the rot around him. A clatter of iron-shod hooves on stone, crowds of men wending between the omnibuses in silk hats and black cloaks and whiskers. He was walking. He was walking with his powerful shoulders set low and his fists like blocks of tackle and it was dusk, it was night, he could just make out the silhouette standing under the gaslight waiting. The face was turned away but it did not matter, he knew that one well.

I don't know if I'm left 100% satisfied by the central mystery (and its misdirections and redirections) in By Gaslight, but the story is so interesting and the writing so perfectly suited, that my overall reading experience is completely positive. Berserkers in the sewers! Aeronauts doing recon! Dickens in the reading room? What's not to like?

[Jaline · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an astonishingly well-written story with many unique characters all pursuing their particular path, each developing their own personal integrity in their own way. Somehow their paths keep intertwining - either directly or peripherally and that is where the story becomes consuming. At times the feeling of foreboding I experienced was so intense I wasn't sure if I could keep on. I'm glad I did. While there are no bright bows wrapping this novel up, in the end it was a reflection - by gaslight - of the realities of the times and places in the story and the people who lived in those times and places. An excellent read and one I would definitely recommend to anyone who is interested in seeing that good and bad are never all good or all bad.

[Fran · Rating 3 out of 5]

A detective's obsession. The criminal who got away. Upon the death of Allan Pinkerton, founder of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, son William Pinkerton embarks on a quest to find the notorious Edward Shade. Although it is thought that Shade perished in the Civil War, Allan Pinkerton has left notes and documents indicating otherwise.

William Pinkerton combs the streets of 1880's London looking for Mary Reckitt believed to have information on the whereabouts of Edward Shade. In the evening gaslight and fog, as William approaches her, she jumps from a bridge. A woman's head found floating in the Thames River is thought to be that of Mary Reckitt. Other body parts of a dismembered female corpse are soon recovered.

Adam Foole, owner of Foole's Rare Goods Emporium is a thief and a gambler. Foole receives, for example, deliveries of sapphire and rubies secreted in the false bottom of crates of ostrich feathers for woman's fashionable hats. Out of the blue, Adam receives a letter from Mary Reckitt, old flame and accomplice. She is in need of his help. Arriving at Mary's house he finds out she is deceased.

William Pinkerton and Adam Foole form an uncomfortable, unlikely alliance in an attempt to find Mary's assailant. Mary seems to hold the key to Edward Shade's identity. William doggedly pursues the case while Adam dances around it aided by new accomplices ex-con man Fludd and six year old Molly so called adopted daughter and adept pickpocket.

"Gaslight" by Steven Price is a voluminous cat and mouse game centering around the relationship between Edward Shade and Allan Pinkerton. While well-written and atmospheric, I found this tome to be a tedious read at times. The 732 page book, whittled down to perhaps 500-600 pages might have been sufficient to solve this Victorian crime/mystery. That said, the principal and secondary characters were well developed and their strengths and weaknesses were showcased.

Thank you Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review "Gaslight'.

[Lata · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. This is a massive (the hardcover is over 700 pages), sprawling, at times torturous story about obsession. The obsessions of three men, across 30-ish years and different countries. The book spans different genres: literary fiction, mystery, western, heist, Victorian drama, detective fiction....gack. I feel like the author threw everything into this book.

The actual story isn't that complicated, but the author gives you a lot of detail (William's wet moustache figures frequently...) and you really get the texture of each setting. If you ever had romantic notions about Victorian London, just put those notions away. The author lets you really feel the muck, and the mud, and the soot, and the fog, and stench of London and the myriad people living in it. And the many bargains and negotiations required just to live, by those not born into the gentry.

The two main characters, Adam and William, are both fascinating, one being a con artist, and the other being one of the co-owners of the Pinkerton Agency. I found myself increasingly sympathetic to Adam as the story progressed. There are lots of other characters, but I felt they were there to help and hinder Adam or William. (For example, Charlotte.........)

This story uses a technique a little reminiscent of Dickens, where the central characters spiral around each other in different settings, without meeting, until, the coincidences pile up, and they eventually meet and melodrama happens. (Not knocking Dickens! It worked well for him.)

The story begins in 1885, but moves back and forth to the American Civil War, the 1870s, and the First World War, as the various main characters' obsessions begin or are explained.

I think I liked this (I must have to get to page 731!) but it was a looooong book, and I actually found myself skimming some of the descriptions of London's grimness, rather than experiencing it with the characters. I felt like the tale could have been shortened, without losing the important events, but then the author couldn't have done as much genre hopping and squelching in London's mud.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Steven Price's Lampedusa is perhaps my favourite read of the year. This is an earlier novel of his and much less accomplished. In fact it's a marvel how much he has developed as a novelist between one book and another. Its chief fault is that it's much too long. 700 pages to tell a story that could have been told in half that. There's a surfeit of visual information. Especially in his descriptions of 1885 London and its poverty. Too many irrelevant characters missing teeth or walking barefoot in winter. It begins with the discovery of a body and a severed head of a woman. This mystery will reveal itself to be little more than an implausible plot device. It's a book that relies on flimsy plot devices - mistaken identities, misunderstandings, characters repeating questions back instead of answering them. Thus the story is strung out. There were a couple of sections that had me gripped but ultimately I found it a novel that promises a lot more than it gives.

[Dianne Landry · Rating 1 out of 5]

I started this book but was very quickly turned off. I would be reading a descriptive paragraph and then suddenly there would be a line that made no sense. It took a second to realize that in the middle of the paragraph was a line of dialogue because there were no quotation marks around it and then after that line the description would starts up again.

Also, the author has a habit of starting chapters talking about what "he" was thinking or doing but it would take a few pages for it to become clear just which character the "he" was. Also, I found the descriptions of things very long winded. I don't need 3 paragraphs to describe the London fog or more than a page to describe a tenement room.

Too bad, I thought it would be good. Back to the library it goes.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

If M Night wrote a Sherlock Holmes plot and gave it to Cormac McCarthy with instructions to use Poe's style, you'd end up somewhere close to By Gaslight. Simultaneously infuriating and mesmerizing, Steven Price weaves great yarn bagged down by an extremely pretentious writing style. Weaving two mysteries together with consistent misdirection, the plot of By Gaslight is fun, the characters well developed and the payoff rewarding. However, the execution of the book leaves a lot to be desired. Obviously a poet at heart, Price tries too hard here to create a style that is unique, and ends up too often being confusing and repetitive. By doing away with quotation marks it becomes an exercise in trying to figure out not just who is speaking, but whether they're speaking at all. This slows down an otherwise fast moving story to a crawl, creating frustration for the reader. He is also far too descriptive, giving far too much detail about characters, often repeating himself several times with the same thing. Finally, as something a bit humorous, I swear he uses the word "gaslight" at least once every 3 pages. It's extremely funny when you realize how often you've read a single word in a 731 page novel. In all a good try from Steven Price, but falling far short of a truly readable novel, and not coming anywhere close to the classic he was obviously trying to write.

[Laurie • The Baking Bookworm · Rating 3 out of 5]

By Gaslight is a historical fiction mystery that includes scenes from South Africa, Victorian London and the American Civil War. We are introduced to its two protagonists - William Pinkerton, a well known American detective and son of the famous Allan Pinkerton, and Adam Foole, a high brow criminal with a gaggle of interesting cohorts whose past is quite sketchy. Those aspects, as well as the beautifully eerie Victorian cover, made me eager to pick up this impressive book.

I found Price's writing to be wonderfully vivid as he pulls his readers into the underbelly of Victorian London and the ruthlessness of the American Civil War. His prose is quite compelling making it easy to see that he is originally a poet by trade. Price starts off his lengthy tome very strong with the murder of a woman and the mysterious Edward Shade character who Pinkerton is attempting to capture.

Unfortunately, while I found the beginning of the book quite strong (as well as the ending) the bulk of the book had a very slow pace. I'm a fast reader but it took me two weeks to read this book because I kept having to put it down when my interest waned. There was a lot of detail in the side stories which took away from the two plots that I was interested in - the murder of the young woman and the identity of the elusive Mr Shade. I think the book could have been scaled back considerably with more focus on the suspense and less on the intricate details of the minor plots and the continuous jumping between eras.

Another reason for my lackluster feel towards this book, and the one I found most surprising, is the fact that Price used very limited punctuation and no quotation marks to indicate when a character is speaking. An odd choice and a frustrating experience for the reader.

I gave this book three stars because Price had a great premise, excels at describing scenes for his readers and has an interesting array of characters (Molly was the most interesting of all). I was also a fan of the occasional snippets of humorous banter sprinkled throughout. Overall, this was a mighty undertaking of a book and while it wasn't a hit for me, others who enjoy lengthy Historical Fiction with a side of mystery should enjoy this large read.

Disclaimer: My sincere thanks to Random House Canada for providing me with a complimentary paperback copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

My 2017 goal of reading one book of 500+ pages per month has been a mixed success. With the best doorstoppers the pages fly by and you enjoy every minute spent in a fictional world. From this past year Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle fits that bill, and a couple of novels I read years ago on holidays also come to mind: Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and Michel Faber’s The Crimson Petal and the White. But then there are the books that feel like they’ll never end and you have to drag yourself through page by page.

Unfortunately, Steven Price’s second novel, By Gaslight, a Victorian cat-and-mouse mystery, tended more towards the latter group for me. Like Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries, it has the kernel of a fascinating story but piles up the words unnecessarily. Between July and August I read the first 300 pages and then skimmed the rest (in total the paperback has 731 small-type pages). This is the story of William Pinkerton, a 39-year-old Civil War veteran and private investigator from Chicago who comes to London in 1885 to chase up a name from his father’s files: Edward Shade. His best lead comes to nothing when Charlotte Reckitt evades him and turns up as a set of dismembered remains in the Thames. Keeping in mind the rudimentary state of forensics, though, there’s some uncertainty about the corpse’s identity.

The other central character in this drama is Adam Foole, a master thief. Half Indian and half English, he has violet eyes and travels in the company of Molly, a young pickpocket he passes off as his daughter, and Japheth Fludd, a vegetarian giant just out of prison. Foole was Charlotte’s lover ten years ago in South Africa, where they together pulled off a legendary diamond heist. Now he’s traveling back to England: she’s requested his help with a job as she knows she’s being tailed by a detective. The remaining cast is large and Dickensian: a medium and her lawyer brother, Charlotte’s imprisoned uncle, sewer dwellers, an opium dealer, and so on. Settings include a rare goods emporium, a Miss Havisham-type lonely manor house, the Record Office at Chancery Lane, and plenty of shabby garrets.

What I most enjoyed about the book was the restless, outlaw spirit of both main characters, but particularly Pinkerton. His troubled relationship with his father, in whose footsteps he’s following as a detective, is especially poignant: “William feared him and loved him and loathed him every day of his life yet too not a day passed that he did not want to be him.”

Price’s style is not what you’d generally expect of a Victorian pastiche. He uses no speech marks and his punctuation is non-standard, with lots of incomplete or run-in sentences like the one above. The critics’ blurbs liken By Gaslight to William Faulkner or Cormac McCarthy, apt comparisons that tell you just how unusual a hybrid it is.

I liked Price’s writing and starting around page 150 found the book truly gripping for a time, but extended flashbacks to Pinkerton and Foole’s earlier years really drag the story down, taking away from the suspense of the hunt. Meanwhile, the two major twists aren’t confirmed until over halfway through, but are hinted at so early that the watchful reader will know what’s going on long before the supposedly shrewd Pinkerton does. The salient facts about both characters’ past might have been conveyed in one short chapter each and the 1885 plot streamlined to make a taut novel of less than half the length.

There are many reasons to admire this Canadian novelist’s achievement, but whether it’s a reading experience you’d enjoy is something you’ll have to decide for yourself.

A favorite passage:

There is in every life a shadow of the possible, she said to him. The almost and the might have been. There are the histories that never were. We imagine we are keeping our accounts but what we are really saying is, I was here, I was real, this did happen once. It happened.

Fun trivia: Steven Price is married to Esi Edugyan, author of the Booker Prize-shortlisted novel Half Blood Blues.

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Carolyn Walsh · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a book I preordered and was anxious to read and like for several reasons. It was likened to The Luminaries which was one of my favorite books in recent years (all 848 pages); the setting in 19th century London; the beautiful, eerie cover art. I was disappointed in By Gaslight. It seemed bloated and kept losing interest. I found when I put the book aside I started and finished several books, being reluctant to pick it up again but was determined to finish it.
A big problem was it skipping back in time and place just when I was getting interested in the vivid descriptions of the filth, squalor and the elegant mansions of London. I wished the back stories of Foole and Pinkerton were reduced to a few paragraphs so I could immerse myself in the Victorian London atmosphere. Perhaps the lengthy civil war section belonged in another book. I have no problem with a story going back in time, but these jumps were so unexpected and abrupt, and these chapters so long that it didn't work for me.

Pinkerton has come from America to find a man named Edward Shade, a con man and thief. Pinkerton's father was the founder of the Pinkerton agency, who before his death was obsessed in finding Shade. Pinkerton believes the key to finding Shade lies with a mysterious woman grifter whom Shade had loved years before in South Africa and has been rumored to be living in London. He meets up with an elegant gentleman , Foole, with connections to some unsavory characters who is also searching for Shade as well as cohorts of the mysterious woman. By most accounts the woman is dead and Shade died during the American Civil War. The search leads them through the foggy streets into upper class drawing rooms, streets of mud and filth interviewing hardened criminals, to a seance, and through the unspeakable filth of the London sewers.

I like a story with twists that I didn't see coming. Unfortunately I figured what became of Shade before Pinkerton did. There have criticisms about the lack of quotation marks and sometime commas. I was more bothered by new chapters talking about 'he' did this or thought that, and it was often a few pages before I knew if the subject of the chapter was Pinkerton, Foole or someone else. At the beginning of the book there was flash (criminal) slang of the 1800's underworld, and had to guess the meaning from context. I had only seen this in one other book but these words were translated. Also, I didn't care for or identify with any of the characters which I found unlikable, but probably liked some of the criminals better than Pinkerton.
There was much to admire in this book, such as the descriptions of the hazy, dark gaslight atmosphere, but thought a very good plot got lost or at least obscured in the lengthy back stories and the structure of the time jumps. I wanted to give it a higher rating, but I plodded along through the 730 pages.

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book starts with a description of London, circa 1885 that was vivid enough to have me feeling the grime. This is Price’s forte, his descriptions. They take you right into the place and time. There's a feel of Dickens in the writing - that same heaviness, that same ability to capture the darkness.

The story involves two men, William Pinkerton, the son of Allan, the founder of the detective agency and Adam Foole, a down on his luck thief with a past that has taken him around the world. There is also Mary Reckitt, a con artist and the link that binds the two men together.

The story jumps from London to flashbacks of South Africa and the American Civil War. It makes for a disjointed story line that takes a while to come together. And to be honest, the book would have been tighter and better without some of these back stories. It dragged in the middle. Even the wonderful descriptions can't make up for a slow storyline. But it's worth it to stick with it for the ending.

My thanks to Netgalley and Farrar, Strauss & Giroux for an advance copy of this book.

[Gavin Armour · Rating 5 out of 5]

Werke – ob „ernsthafte“ Literatur oder solche zur reinen Unterhaltung – die die 900-Seiten-Grenze überschreiten, müssen schon viel zu sagen haben. Die Erfahrung lehrt: Meist haben sie das nicht. Sicher, ein Thomas Mann, ein Uwe Johnson oder etliche Autoren des 19. Jahrhunderts, die sich darauf verlassen konnten, daß der Leser aus Lesen wirklich nicht allzu viel zu tun hatte in seinen freien Stunden, diese Autoren mögen einiges zu sagen gehabt haben. Heute kommen einem manche 600-Seiten-Werke eher wie Rechtfertigungen des Verlags dafür vor, höhere Preise verlangen zu dürfen.

Warum solch eine Vorrede? Weil Steven Price mit seinem Roman DIE FRAU IN DER THEMSE (BY GASLIGHT; erschienen 2016) die 900-Seiten-Grneze locker reißt und man dennoch, ausnahmsweise, behaupten darf: Die Länge passt, kein Wort zu viel, kein unnötiger Handlungsstrang, keine überflüssigen Figuren, keine abstrusen Nebengeschichten als Füllung etc. Was er hier bietet, ist organisch, fügt sich perfekt ineinander und braucht genau diese Epik, diese Breite und Tiefe, um überzeugen zu können.

Price erzählt aus einem, wie er im Nachwort selber klarstellt, äußerst fiktiven London des Jahres 1885 von der Suche zweier Männer nach einer Frau. Der Meister-Detektiv William Pinkerton will Charlotte Reckitt finden, um endlich das letzte Geheimnis seines verstorbenen Vaters, des Gründers der Detektei Pinkerton, das den Namen „Edward Shade“ trägt, zu lüften und inneren Frieden zu finden; der Meister-Dieb Adam Foole muß Charlotte Reckitt finden, weil sie seine große Liebe war und immer noch ist, auch wenn er sie nahezu zehn Jahre nicht gesehen hat. Und auch Foole sucht inneren Frieden. Doch Charlotte Reckitt ist tot. Vor den Augen Pinkertons sprang sie in die Themse und wurde später – zerstückelt – an mehreren Orten in London gefunden. Und so kreisen die beiden Männer umeinander, im Grunde aufeinander angewiesen, mal sich gegenseitig unterstützend, mal sich gegenseitig Steine in den Weg legend. Und nach und nach wird dem Leser – durch die Erinnerungen der beiden – das ganze Ausmaß der Verbindung, die sie zueinander haben, aufgeblättert, Das reicht weit in die Vergangenheit zurück, in den amerikanischen Bürgerkrieg und weit darüber hinaus.

So führt Price den Leser nicht nur in das neblige London von 1885, sondern auch an die Schauplätze des großen amerikanischen Schlachtens in den Jahren 1861 und 1862, nach Südafrika im Jahr 1875, greift auch einmal voraus auf das Jahr 1917 und malt ein – wie gesagt höchst fiktives – Bild des späten 19. Jahrhunderts, das von Gesellschaften im Umbruch erzählt, von der Industrialisierung, vom gnadenlosen Liberalismus, der es einer Stadt wie London, damalige „Hauptstadt der Welt“, erlaubte, die Armen direkt neben den Reichen zu platzieren, ohne daß es zu Aufständen, gar Revolutionen kam. Wie Norman Mailer einmal sagte, sei ihm die Fiktion oft lieber als ein Geschichtsbuch, da es ihr gelänge, die „Wahrheit“ weitaus akkurater einzufangen, als ein wohlgeordneter Sachtext. Dieser Maxime scheint auch Price zu folgen. Zwar vermischt er historisches Personal, Anleihen bei Autoren der Zeit – Dickens, Wilkie Collins und Edgar Allan Poe dürften für so manche stilistische Wendung und Figurenzeichnung, aber auch für die Atmosphäre des dichten Werks Pate gestanden haben – und literarische Figuren – unter anderem tritt ein Arzt auf, der für Scotland Yard arbeitet und dessen Lesart der Indizien eines Tatorts sehr an Sherlock Holmes erinnert – so, daß ein dichtes Gewebe entsteht, doch fängt er sicherlich genug wirkliche, faktische Atmosphäre ein, um ein recht gutes Bild jener Tage einzufangen.

Price´ Figuren sind alles andere als leicht zu konsumierende Pappkameraden, die lediglich, wie man es leider häufig in historischen Romanen antrifft, Funktionsträger sind, sondern sie sind lebensecht gezeichnet. Pinkerton ist zum Zeitpunkt, an dem der Hauptteil der Handlung spielt, in seinen fortgeschrittenen 50ern und bringt ein gerüttelt´ Maß an Lebensweisheit und Verdruß mit, um in seiner Tragik zu überzeugen. Ein Mann voller Widersprüche, voller Geheimnisse, voller Abscheu einer Welt gegenüber, die enorm viel Elend produziert und doch keinen moralischen Fortschritt zu erlangen scheint. Er ist brutal, hitzig und doch innerlich verletzt. Ein Mann, der immer noch gegen den Schatten des übermächtigen Vaters ankämpft und hofft, mit der Lösung des Geheimnisses „Edward Shade“, welches nur Charlotte Reckitt aufdecken zu können scheint, endlich Frieden zu finden. Foole ist eine ebenso tragische Figur, durch seinen spezifischen Lebenslauf in der Welt herumgeschubst, schon als Kind über Kontinente verfrachtet und immer wieder Opfer der Machenschaften anderer, die ihn auszunutzen verstanden, aber auch fallen ließen, wenn er nicht mehr nützlich schien. So hat er sich zu einem Kriminellen entwickelt, der der Gesellschaft, deren Produkt er ist, nichts schuldet, sich niemandem verpflichtet fühlt, der seinerseits Gewalt verabscheut, aber durchaus bereit ist, sie anzuwenden, wenn es seinen Geschäften nutzt. In ihm brennt ein altes Verlangen, daß sich eben nicht nur auf die verlorene Frau bezieht, sondern auch nach Ruhe und Frieden sehnt.

Um dieses ungleiche Paar herum ordnet Price eine ganze Reihe zwar nicht so genau ausgearbeiteter Figuren an, die aber alle, dank seiner Beschreibungsgabe, ein eigenes Leben, eigenen Charakter besitzen und dadurch prall und lebensecht wirken. Manche werden uns nähergebracht, andere bewahren ihre Geheimnisse und bieten dem Leser nur durch gelegentliche Hinweise des Autors eine Fülle an Möglichkeiten, diese Geschichten weiter zu spinnen, sich auszumalen, wo sie herkommen, was ihnen geschehen ist und wie es mit ihnen weitergehen könnte, bzw. wie sie ihre Leben gefristet haben. Und es gelingt Price – darin sicher an Dickens geschult – ihnen genug humoristische Eigenschaften zukommen zu lassen, daß sein Werk nicht nur in Tragik und Drama versinkt. So sind die dauernden Frotzeleien zwischen Pinkerton, dem Inspector John Shore vom Yard und dessen Adlatus Blackwell allein schon die Lektüre wert. Price mag sein gesamtes Personal, selbst jene Figuren, die nur kurz und wie nebenbei auftauchen, wodurch sie alle liebevoll ausgestattet werden und selbst für kurz auftretende Protagonisten noch ein Nebensatz bleibt, der ihnen Respekt zollt, selbst wenn es sich um einen Mörder handelt. Die weniger sympathischen Figuren ihrerseits sind so ausgestaltet, daß man ihnen dennoch gern folgt und sich angemessen über ihre Winkelzüge aufregen kann.

Es gelingt Price also hervorragend, einen hintergründigen Roman zu schreiben, der atmosphärisch ausgesprochen gelungen ist, der seine Zeit niemals beschönigt, der die Hauptfiguren perfekt als Produkte genau dieser Jahre und Jahrzehnte ausstellt, die sie geprägt haben und zugleich ihre inneren Verwerfungen, ihre Deformationen und Abgründe nicht nur als Schwächen, sondern auch als Folgen des Lebens in harten Zeiten benennt. Nominell könnte man dies als einen Krimi bezeichnen, da sich alles um die Suche nach einer Verschwundenen, bzw. ihres Mörders dreht, doch wäre das eine Irreführung. Price malt ein Gesellschaftsportrait, er bietet Charakterstudien und genügend Anleihen der Literaturgeschichte und der damaligen Realität – natürlich schwingen im Hintergrund auch die Ripper-Morde mit, die 1888 London erschütterten – um den Leser die Zeit, ihre Auswüchse, ihre Härten und Brüche spüren zu lassen. Das weist weit über einen reinen Krimi hinaus. Natürlich ist die Wahl der Form aber selbst schon ein Verweis auf die damals beliebten Populär-Romane, oftmals der Krimi- und Schauerliteratur zuzurechnen. So lässt es sich Price auch nicht nehmen, durchaus schauerliche Momente voller dräuenden Unheils in seinen Text einzuflechten.

So entsteht ein Panorama, das packt, unterhält, zum Nachdenken anregt und zudem die seltene Eigenschaft besitzt, daß der Leser, je weniger noch zu lesenden Seiten bleiben, immer langsamer in der Lektüre wird, um das unweigerliche Ende, die Trennung von diesen Figuren, hinauszuzögern. Steven Price ist mit DIE FRAU IN DER THEMSE ein wahrlich großartiges Stück Literatur an der Schnittstelle von „großer Literatur“ und Unterhaltung gelungen. Chapeau!

[Nikki in Niagara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very long book and it took me a long time to read but I will say I enjoyed it. It is slow-paced and I didn't have a hard time putting it down but each time I picked it up I easily got lost in the world again. This is historical fiction set during the Victorian era featuring The Pinkertons, William mainly. It's not based on truth nor does it profess to be. It does give one insight into Victorian London, especially the criminal class, and surprisingly the other main theme is the American Civil War. I enjoyed the story and really enjoyed the characters and would read another book by the same author. However, it had a few problems that kept it from being reader friendly. Firstly, there are no quotation marks and while I've got used to that being acceptable in modern literature it does always slow down the reading. Secondly, the plot moves back and forth in space and time while having very long chapters.I like the device of switching back and forth from the past to present but the chapters were so long in this book that the switches were hard to adjust to. Ths doesn't interfere with understanding the plot but does slow down the reading making you feel more like plodding through the book than galloping along with it.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an epic historical fiction and I can certainly see why it is on the Giller longlist! The settings, especially Victorian London, are incredibly detailed and vivid and I really felt like I was right there in the action. The characters are well-drawn and fully fleshed out with huge back stories. Like the setting, the characters felt so real that I would expect to glimpse them through the fog were I to visit London. This is not a quick read and you have to have the patience for a very well developed story and intricate plot but if you make it to the end it is very rewarding.

I often listen to the audio version of books and I'm glad I didn't attempt it with this one. It alternates each chapter between the two main characters and jumps back and forth in time often within one chapter and without any indication. I imagine it would be a pretty confusing listen. It's the kind of book I prefer to read rather than have read to me.

[Janis Forster · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was really excited about reading this book. I was expecting an absorbing, atmospheric English novel written around the time of Jack the Ripper. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a big disappointment. In fact, it was so bad, I couldn't even finish it, which is rare for me. I really couldn't connect with the dark characters and the meandering, tedious way that the author kept going back to their past didn't help. He just never seemed to get to the point of solving the mystery. I also didn't like the fact that he didn't use any quotation marks. In the end, I just no longer cared about the story or the characters and decided not to finish it.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

THIS BOOK IS SO GOOD!!

I’ve been watching this book for years out of the corner of my eye, waiting for a paperback copy (because let’s be real, hardcover versions might be pretty, but they are an expensive pain in the ass to carry around), and the wait is so worth it!

For those who are into the YA scene I would call this reminiscent of Six of Crows, and for others more inclined towards the classics By Gaslight has an excellent blend of the Dickensian coming-of-age novel, meshed with the dark, anti-hero vibe of Stevenson. And if you aren’t into either of those I hope you know what I mean when I say it came across as a lighter episode in Showtime’s Penny Dreadful.

I’m giving this book 5 stars not because it was absolutely perfect, but because what wasn’t was overshadowed by how much I enjoyed the book as a whole. I haven’t been invested in a book like how I was with this one in a looooong time. It even had me pulling near all-nighters AND waking up early (and I love my sleep ok) and here’s why:

#1. The atmosphere of the book is phenomenal. From what I’ve seen in this book Price has a gift for building an atmosphere that effortlessly sinks into the reader. There’s no major info dumping, or artsy fartsy purple descriptions that sure are beautiful, but can leave the reader bored and grasping for the point. I’m not big on poetry, but the lyrical way the grimy streets of London, or the desperation of the war back in Virginia crept up on me felt real, effortless, and spoke of Price's background as a poet.

#2. By Gaslight is driven by the characters rather than the plot (which is a huge part of what really attracted me to it, and could be a problem if you're more of a plot-based go-go-go reader). As opposed to sliding into 1 dimensional stereotypes of jilted thieves, and bleak detectives, Price’s characters grew from these templates into unique individuals that immediately captured my attention. Of course there’s plot underneath it all, but the characters and their relationships with one another are what push it forward. The dialogue was clever, and each character had a tone of voice that separated them from the other. I wanted (and still want) to know more, and more about them.

#3. The atmosphere worked hand-in-hand with the historical context of the novel in a way that made it feel real, without coming across as a stuffy textbook (hallelujah!). So often when I read historical fiction it’s either inaccurate, or boring due to the fact that author is so concerned with being historically correct that the reader is weighed down with random dumps of lingo, and facts that draw away from the voice and plot of the book. There is none of that with this book. Steven Price is excellent at the art of “show” rather than “tell” (same diatribe English teachers have been spouting since the kindergarten) and I was hooked from the first page. Due to the feeling of the novel, and the characters, the events that took place in the novel feel real, and I never questioned the where, why, or how of these events.

My only drawbacks are that some of the time skips are slightly jumpy, and I wanted to know more about Molly, Fludd, Foole’s past, and Rose’s creepy seance ghosts. Although, I think a lot of that feeling of needing to know more stems from the fact that I’m so used to single novels growing into duologies, trilogies, series, etc. In the end I just have to deal with the fact that it’s over :’(

[Sarah]

DNF at 15%. I'm not rating or dating because I simply lost interest. I was over three hours in and it was still building the characters. I returned the audio and have no desire to read it in the future.

[Stacia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Considering the dismal, dark, dank, dingy London much of this novel inhabits, it might seem strange to describe the writing as luscious... but luscious it is. Price is poet & what lovely prose he crafts. A sweeping, brooding mix of historical mystery & thriller, it fully fleshes out histories of its two main characters & their strangely-intersecting, criss-crossing lives. There is so much packed into the many pages that I was fully immersed in the story, the world, & the characters the entire time. To that extent, it reminded me very much of reading Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch -- a long, layered story, beautifully written. By Gaslight carries the same features, even though the tales are distinctly different. By story's end (not epilogue), Price has given you a lovely and unexpected conclusion. Well worth the read & highly recommended.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars.Reminiscent of authors like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie, Steven Price relates the lives of two men and the woman that ties them together. To be frank this is no mere romance as the author tells the tales of the past and interweaves them with the mysteries of the present. The story takes us from the American Civil War to late 19th century London.

As intriguing as the story was, I thought it was a bit lengthy and I consistently put the book down and retried to read it again and again. Although it didn't work for me, I'm sure that this is going to interest readers that enjoy good old fashioned British crime.

[Amy Mancini · Rating 1 out of 5]

I abandoned this book after just 20 pages. The author's run on sentences, lack of punctuation, and unclear antecedents distracted me to the point that I could think of nothing else. You could go for pages and never know which character was in the scene because "he" was. All of my mental energy was going into figuring out how to read the sentences. I never knew if someone was speaking (no quotation marks). As a result, I was unable
to follow the plot. I like literary fiction, but this one is trying too hard.

[Angela · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn't wait to dive into this - I love novels set during this time period - and a detective novel to boot - woot! Then I got a few pages in, and... where the frell are the quotation marks?? I know other authors have used this technique before, but it's danged annoying and very difficult for me to ignore.

Such as (not from the book, just my own example): He walked across the room. It's sure cold in here, he picked up a tea cup then set it down, so, how you been, he said.

Totally annoying, right? This just seems pretentious and unnecessary to me - we have punctuation for a reason, people! - or maybe I'm just turning into a grumpy old git - but I'm going to shelf this one.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like a 3.6. It was an okay read but felt 75% was spent getting the reader to the actual story. An odd one for me.

[Dan Radovich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh boy this one is HUGE and packed with a lot of history. That being said, it IS a wonderful thriller set in late 1800's London (for the most part). William Pinkerton (son of the famous detective) is in England searching for the man he thinks killed his father. He and Adam Foole, a man of questionable integrity, both end up searching for the same woman for different reasons. These two 'team up' for a thriller written with some of the best prose I have read in years. Price is a great wordsmith. He also loves history and detail. The US Civil War, the American Wild West, the Boers and South African diamond trade, these are some of the subplots Price brings into his tale. I do not mind that there are parts of this book that are not pivotal to the plot, because Price's writing is so good I just continued consuming each sentence. I look forward to more from Price and plan to check out his earlier fiction. (sorry - I am not a poetry reader).

[Leo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I do love to read mystery set in victorian times but they are not as easy to find as I would like them to be. So I was super excited and even more so when I realized it was a big chunky one. But unfortunately it was rather a lukewarm reading experience. Not bad but for the the size and the time spent on this book it didn't feel like it was a time we'll spent.

[MissBecka Gee · Rating 1 out of 5]

John Lee was a fantastic narrator, but even that couldn't save this book :(
The best part of this book was the wave of relief I felt when it was over.

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

By Gaslight tells the story of two characters (and those in their orbit), William Pinkerton and Adam Foole. Both appear to be on either side of the law, one the son of Allan Pinkerton, founder of Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency, and the other, an uncommon thief. What is their connection? When Allan dies, William finds himself lost and numb. William always felt that he didn’t know his father very well, that there was a lack of filial connection. He finds his father’s death hard to grieve. While reviewing his father’s notes and paper work in the aftermath of his death, he comes across a dossier on Edward Shade. It appears that his father was tracking this individual for many years, but it seems he was unable to find him. Thus begins William’s quest to fulfill his father’s goal, but instead he finds more questions than answers. And he is compelled to uncover all of the truths that seem to continually elude him.

The narrative spans a wide swath of time, moving back and forth from the present-day Victorian era, to the not-so-distant past and then into the early 1900s. It also takes place in England, South Africa and the United States. Told in the alternating voices of both William and Adam, it was hard to believe that their lives would cross. But they did, and with devastating but illuminating results. The language Steven Price used was beautiful and haunting and I was intrigued with his elimination of quotation marks that usually denote dialogue. I was a little confused at first, but I soon got used to the style and very quickly, this change in punctuation melted into the background. The story took over and I was hooked.

There was a lot of descriptive detail to this story and very strong and ample character development which contributed immensely to the length of the novel. I can see why some readers may find this tedious to wade through. I think today’s readers may be accustomed to the 250-400 page novel that quickly hones in on an issue and then resolves it, I enjoy them too. But this is not that kind of novel. And I think that it’s helpful to read it in larger chunks of time to maintain a narrative flow and connection. That’s how I read it and I found that it engulfed me when I was able to devote time to it. I also found that Price used chapter length for specific purposes. For the most part, chapters were fairly lengthy and contained a fair amount of detail, focussing alternately on William and Adam. But when tension needed to be heightened and suspense increased, the chapters were dramatically shortened to highlight the urgency of the events. It was a very effective writing technique.

At 731 pages, this is hardly a light read. But I found it so compelling that I willingly put aside hours of time to read and savour it. I loved this book. I’m not just saying that because I won it via a Goodreads/Penguin Random House giveaway. I loved it because it was just my kind of book. Something I could really get lost in. Something formidable. Something enduring. Something I won’t soon forget. I very much look forward to reading Steven Price’s next great story. But this one will be hard to top.

My sincere thanks to Goodreads and Penguin Random House for a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

[Candace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps one of my favourite fiction books of the year. Detective William Pinkerton, determined to put the ghost of his father to rest by finding the one criminal who always eluded him, Edward Shade. He follows a lead - a woman - to London, but before he can question her she jumps into the Thames. And then there's Adam Foole, a highbrow con-man/smuggler/thief who has brought his rag-tag working family back to London all because of a letter he received about a new proposition from his long ago lost love, who then turns up dead.

Often thriller books of this era are either American Westerns or London Fog Mysteries, but this one is both, as you get glimpses of the present (in London, with all its fancy parlours, filthy streets, opium dens, séances, and sewer-dwelling mudlarks) and the past, which takes you to Chicago, Nevada, the front lines of the American Civil War, and even South Africa. I saw some reviews complaining about confusion when the time/perspective changed, but I didn't find that at all. Either the section heading told you the year and place, or the text gave me enough to immediately know who I was reading, and what was going on.

Stylistically, Price chooses to integrate his dialogue in paragraphs without quotation marks or other various punctuation. It took a moment to get used to, and I think it would be clearer if written in the traditional way, but otherwise I didn't have trouble to read it and know who was speaking. There were some moments of not being sure if something was thought or speech until after reading it and gaining more context, which could get a bit muddled, but overall it didn't break the story for me.

I don't want to say much more, as I went into the story knowing very little, and enjoyed that quite immensely! there were some reveals that I saw coming, some I didn't, but either way I enjoyed the scope of the book and the steady pace, along with rich descriptions and great characters. Some people might find the book slow in parts, as there are diversions to the past, and with some side characters, but I really enjoyed this fleshing of the story, it gave a broader sense of the lives intertwined, and all the history which lead to the present action.