Perfume
Length of Time in Possession : 6 years at least
I've been having a problem with the number of books I've read thus far this year. Not only am I much busier now but the books that I am reading are books that I have possessed for years and haven't got through, Perfume being an example of this. More and more I am realising that the reason I've had certain books for so long is because my desire to read them was so low, and usually there's a reason for that. It's been so long since I read an amazing book I'm getting pretty frustrated.
Perfume is a case in point, though it was a book club choice, I've also had it for years. I will probably get negative feedback from people who disagree, but I thought this was one of the worst books I've read in a long time, potentially ever.
The story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, an illegitimate orphan with a superhuman sense of smell, he becomes a murderer in order to keep scents of women he enjoys.
The books ultimate strength is in its descriptive prose of smells of all kinds, these areas are well written, but, in terms of the plot the book is simply bizarre.
Though it is labelled Perfume : Story Of A Murderer, a murder barely described, occurs early then not much happens murder wise for a very long time in an essentially short plot until Grenouille goes on a spree near the end, but when this does happen they are referred to like news 'and then another girl died' and are barely described. For a vast section of the books 269 pages he goes on a long walk and then lives in a cave.
There are two endings if you like an end to his killings and then the ultimate end of the book, and both these events are among the most bizarre, ludicrous, laughable and stupid plot points I've ever read in any book.
I hated this book as did my book club. Did not really enjoy it on any level though I respected the quality of prose at times.
Verdict : I would literally only give this book a 2/10
Destination : Charity Shop
Showing posts with label Murder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Murder. Show all posts
Wednesday, 22 May 2013
Saturday, 22 December 2012
Book #99 Jack Glass by Adam Roberts
Jack Glass
I'm not quite sure how I was drawn to Jack Glass, I think it popped up in 'People Also Bought' on Amazon, it sounded interesting and I think ultimately I bought it as a consequence of that unforgivable thing of "liking the cover" which is very pretty, despite the well known proverb.
What is marvellous about Jack Glass is its originality. We are informed in its preface, that protagonist Jack Glass is an infamous murderer, and what the book comprises of is three short stories about crimes he has committed. These crimes are described thusly by the narrator who is the self appointed Doctor Watson to Glass's murderous Holmes :
As well as being three mystery stories, comprising of "In The Box", "The FTL Murders" and "The Impossible Gun" Jack Glass also belongs to the sci-fi genre with all three stories taking place in some futuristic time which is both recognisable and completely different from our present day.
What I liked so much about Jack Glass was that as well as being a story it's an intellectual challenge, both in terms of solving the mystery before it's revealed and in order to get "your head around" some of the high end Science concepts explored as part of the futuristic science fiction. The paradoxes and so forth.
I found that I utterly kicked myself when the second story "The FTL Murders" was resolved, and also really enjoyed the first story, finding the third weaker by comparison. It is only because I didn't rate The Impossible Gun as much that I am not giving this 10/10, because I really enjoyed the quality and integrity of the book in terms of how it made you think and I will certainly look out for more work by Adam Roberts in future.
Recommended : 9/10
I'm not quite sure how I was drawn to Jack Glass, I think it popped up in 'People Also Bought' on Amazon, it sounded interesting and I think ultimately I bought it as a consequence of that unforgivable thing of "liking the cover" which is very pretty, despite the well known proverb.
What is marvellous about Jack Glass is its originality. We are informed in its preface, that protagonist Jack Glass is an infamous murderer, and what the book comprises of is three short stories about crimes he has committed. These crimes are described thusly by the narrator who is the self appointed Doctor Watson to Glass's murderous Holmes :
"One of these mysteries is a prison story. One is a regular whodunit. One is a locked room mystery. I can't promise that they are necessarily presented to you in that order; but it should be easy for you to work out which is which, and to sort them out accordingly. Unless you find that each of them is all three at once"
As well as being three mystery stories, comprising of "In The Box", "The FTL Murders" and "The Impossible Gun" Jack Glass also belongs to the sci-fi genre with all three stories taking place in some futuristic time which is both recognisable and completely different from our present day.
What I liked so much about Jack Glass was that as well as being a story it's an intellectual challenge, both in terms of solving the mystery before it's revealed and in order to get "your head around" some of the high end Science concepts explored as part of the futuristic science fiction. The paradoxes and so forth.
I found that I utterly kicked myself when the second story "The FTL Murders" was resolved, and also really enjoyed the first story, finding the third weaker by comparison. It is only because I didn't rate The Impossible Gun as much that I am not giving this 10/10, because I really enjoyed the quality and integrity of the book in terms of how it made you think and I will certainly look out for more work by Adam Roberts in future.
Recommended : 9/10
Monday, 12 November 2012
Book #92 Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
Darkly Dreaming Dexter
Darkly Dreaming Dexter is the first of a sequence of books about Miami serial killer Dexter Morgan, upon which the US series "Dexter" is based. I have seen the first season of Dexter and read the book on that basis. This isn't something I generally like doing (in this order) because if you see someone else's interpretation of a novel before you read it, it is liable to stick with you and effect your feelings about the book during the reading. This happened with Darkly Dreaming Dexter which is why I always try to read the book first.
I really enjoyed the first season of Dexter and so I thought I'd enjoy it equally in written form, I've often wished that The Wire or Breaking Bad textually rich series original to the small screen had novelisations so suited are they to a literary form that they are visual novels.
Dexter Morgan isn't any old serial killer hiding in the shadows, Dexter is the adopted son of a cop, who works in the forensic department of the local police, he has a girlfriend, named Rita, a sister named Debra, also a cop in the same force, and a Code, the Code given to him by his father Harry, who recognised that Dexter had a dark desire in him, a Dark Passenger, which couldn't be tamed, but might be controlled.
Harry, a jaded cop who has seen too many people get away with murder, or be too lightly sentenced, instills in Dexter that he can kill, but he must only ever kill bad people.
So that's the premise, and it's a good, original, one. The writing quality is solidly good, I particularly liked the opening paragraphs beginning with :
To begin with the novel more or less follows the series, but a huge deviation occurs at the midway point when, though the outcome is roughly the same, the road it takes to that outcome massively differs from on screen. Having had both versions, dare I say it that the series brought us to the conclusion in a much more believable way.
I dare say I will read the rest of the Dexter novels in time as I did enjoy it and it was well written 8/10
Darkly Dreaming Dexter is the first of a sequence of books about Miami serial killer Dexter Morgan, upon which the US series "Dexter" is based. I have seen the first season of Dexter and read the book on that basis. This isn't something I generally like doing (in this order) because if you see someone else's interpretation of a novel before you read it, it is liable to stick with you and effect your feelings about the book during the reading. This happened with Darkly Dreaming Dexter which is why I always try to read the book first.
I really enjoyed the first season of Dexter and so I thought I'd enjoy it equally in written form, I've often wished that The Wire or Breaking Bad textually rich series original to the small screen had novelisations so suited are they to a literary form that they are visual novels.
Dexter Morgan isn't any old serial killer hiding in the shadows, Dexter is the adopted son of a cop, who works in the forensic department of the local police, he has a girlfriend, named Rita, a sister named Debra, also a cop in the same force, and a Code, the Code given to him by his father Harry, who recognised that Dexter had a dark desire in him, a Dark Passenger, which couldn't be tamed, but might be controlled.
Harry, a jaded cop who has seen too many people get away with murder, or be too lightly sentenced, instills in Dexter that he can kill, but he must only ever kill bad people.
So that's the premise, and it's a good, original, one. The writing quality is solidly good, I particularly liked the opening paragraphs beginning with :
Moon. Glorious Moon. Full fat, reddish, moon, the night as light as day, the moonlight flooding down across the land, and bringing joy, joy, joy. Bringing too the full throated call of the tropical night, the soft and wild voice of the wind roaring through the hairs on your arm, the hollow wail of starlight, the teeth grinding bellow of the moonlight off the water.Dexter may be a killer, but his voice is often a poetic one. What is amusing and perhaps disturbing is that there is a feature on the Kindle which shows which sections of the novel have been most highlighted. All Darkly, Dreaming Dexter's most highlighted are insights into the disconnect from normality experienced by the sociopath, so clearly there is a readership out there identifying with the character! I liked some of these asides, also used as voice over "If I had feelings I'd have them for Deb". Somehow Dexter does have feelings, he just doesn't realise it himself
To begin with the novel more or less follows the series, but a huge deviation occurs at the midway point when, though the outcome is roughly the same, the road it takes to that outcome massively differs from on screen. Having had both versions, dare I say it that the series brought us to the conclusion in a much more believable way.
I dare say I will read the rest of the Dexter novels in time as I did enjoy it and it was well written 8/10
Saturday, 9 June 2012
Book #52 Every Contact Leaves A Trace by Elanor Dymott
Every Contact Leaves A Trace
Every Contact Leaves A Trace is the story of Alex Petersen and his wife Rachel Cardadine who are Oxford graduates. One evening they attend a dinner at their former college at the invitation of a tutor but when Rachel goes walking alone, she is suddenly murdered, leaving Alex at a loss to know what happened.
Despite beginning with a murder, barely nothing happens throughout this book, a man muses on the sudden death of his wife and gets a new outlook on her past via her affectionate poetry tutor. The smell of elitism and snobbery wafts off the page and none of the characters are particularly likeable. Widower Alex Petersen is terminally dull whilst Godmother Evie is laughably pantomime.
As the truth about what happened to Rachel finally emerges the book becomes entirely ludicrous. The motivation for and execution of her murder is ridiculous; overblown in its utter absurdity, and there is a total absence of believability. In reference to Evie it again lacks all credulity that she would cut Rachel off for her extremely minor in the relative face of it youthful transgressions or indeed be so close to inhuman in her lack of compassion to both widower Alex and god-daughter Rachel whilst living. More importantly until Alex begins to be filled in on the background and some semblance of truth emerges, this book, is I hate to say it, extremely boring or at least it was to me. Dull as dishwater I was both skimming and page counting willing it to just end already. 3/10
Every Contact Leaves A Trace is the story of Alex Petersen and his wife Rachel Cardadine who are Oxford graduates. One evening they attend a dinner at their former college at the invitation of a tutor but when Rachel goes walking alone, she is suddenly murdered, leaving Alex at a loss to know what happened.
Despite beginning with a murder, barely nothing happens throughout this book, a man muses on the sudden death of his wife and gets a new outlook on her past via her affectionate poetry tutor. The smell of elitism and snobbery wafts off the page and none of the characters are particularly likeable. Widower Alex Petersen is terminally dull whilst Godmother Evie is laughably pantomime.
As the truth about what happened to Rachel finally emerges the book becomes entirely ludicrous. The motivation for and execution of her murder is ridiculous; overblown in its utter absurdity, and there is a total absence of believability. In reference to Evie it again lacks all credulity that she would cut Rachel off for her extremely minor in the relative face of it youthful transgressions or indeed be so close to inhuman in her lack of compassion to both widower Alex and god-daughter Rachel whilst living. More importantly until Alex begins to be filled in on the background and some semblance of truth emerges, this book, is I hate to say it, extremely boring or at least it was to me. Dull as dishwater I was both skimming and page counting willing it to just end already. 3/10
Sunday, 8 January 2012
Book #3 Boy A by Jonathan Trigell
Boy A
On the last day of last year I read and was thrilled by Jonathan Trigell's latest novel Genus, a work of speculative fiction about the future of "designer babies". I gave it a rave review. This review was subsequently read by Jonathan who retweeted it on his own Twitter feed and followed me. I nearly cried I was that pleased. So, Jonathan has two other novels Boy A and Cham, neither of which I had read. The controversial and critically acclaimed Boy A was adapted into a drama starring Andrew Garfield, I didn't watch it because I hadn't read the book as that is the choice I usually make: read the book first.
Boy A is the story of "Jack Burridge" a man who referred to as Boy A in court has adopted said alias upon his release from prison because his true identity cannot be known for his own safety. At the age of 12, he and another boy killed a fellow child and a national furore arose.
In the past I have been critical of the ethics involved in taking a well known crime and using it for the sake of fiction. The ethics and also the originality. A prime example of this is the way in which the back story of the character Joanna echoed that of Josie Russell in the Kate Atkinson novel "When Will There Be Good News?" I didn't like it.
Boy A however is a very different beast. Whereas in the case of the Atkinson and a couple of other novels with similar elements I have read in the last 18 months, the crime is treated in a somewhat tawdry manner, as one more ingredient in the pot, for Trigell it isn't a throwaway nod, it's a real, multi-layered look into a crime which rocked British society. Though Jack Burridge is fictional so much of his story correlates to the original crime that Boy A is rather more a piece of faction beneath which lies both psychological analysis of a perpetrator and a modern social commentary. Boy A is not a sensationalist exploitative piece is my point, but a novel with something relevant and important to say about a crime so shocking it affected the national psyche.
The crime I am of course referring to is the murder of toddler James Bulger by schoolboys Robert Thompson and Jon Venables in 1993. I grew up not far from the area in which he was killed and I remember the local as well as national reaction, and I was only a year older than his killers at the time.
Some of the factional echoes Trigell describes include a Sun campaign to prevent the release of "Burridge" - something which actually occurred in real life. The novel also makes reference to the manner in which many adults gathered to hurl abuse at the police van carrying the two boys, I remember being asked to reflect upon the morality of this in an RE class: Should grown men and women be hurling profane abuse at two children no matter what they had done? Shouldn't they be questioning themselves their politicians and community leaders about the breakdown in society that had led us to this tragic situation? Didn't their behaviour further illustrate unnerving social decay?
In Boy A Jack Burridge is released from prison and tries to establish a new life, a job, friends, a girlfriend, but his past follows him almost as if he were under surveillance from it. Haunted and hunted Burridge will never escape his past actions.
The remarkable prescience shown by Jonathan Trigell in Genus is also bizarrely evident in Boy A. I took main character Burridge to be based more upon the life of Venables than that of Thompson. In the media coverage Thompson was more demonised and Venables depicted as the softer boy who was led along. In Boy A, Burridge only admits a share in the responsibility for the little girl's death when his contact with a kindly support worker is threatened. His psychologist is also hoping for something good to write for the sake of career progression. In the novel, though perhaps not in real life, there is a hint of doubt as to his guilt.
Boy A was published in 2004, in 2010 Jon Venables new identity was blown, he was also revealed to have violated his parole, had been involved in viewing child pornography and was returned to prison. A six year difference between the events of Boy A and a similar yet not quite real life mirroring. With this, alongside the riots of Genus if I were Jonathan Trigell, I'd be a bit worried I was psychic at this point. Boy A also reflects upon the hounding nature of the British press, a hot topic in the UK over the last 12 months.
With its real life counterpart set aside, Boy A is an intriguing novel about the human capacity for forgiveness, individual forgiveness, national forgiveness, and most importantly the forgiveness of ourselves. I was reminded of a quote from one of my favourite films 'The Shawshank Redemption' said by aging criminal Red as played by Morgan Freeman :
On the last day of last year I read and was thrilled by Jonathan Trigell's latest novel Genus, a work of speculative fiction about the future of "designer babies". I gave it a rave review. This review was subsequently read by Jonathan who retweeted it on his own Twitter feed and followed me. I nearly cried I was that pleased. So, Jonathan has two other novels Boy A and Cham, neither of which I had read. The controversial and critically acclaimed Boy A was adapted into a drama starring Andrew Garfield, I didn't watch it because I hadn't read the book as that is the choice I usually make: read the book first.
Boy A is the story of "Jack Burridge" a man who referred to as Boy A in court has adopted said alias upon his release from prison because his true identity cannot be known for his own safety. At the age of 12, he and another boy killed a fellow child and a national furore arose.
In the past I have been critical of the ethics involved in taking a well known crime and using it for the sake of fiction. The ethics and also the originality. A prime example of this is the way in which the back story of the character Joanna echoed that of Josie Russell in the Kate Atkinson novel "When Will There Be Good News?" I didn't like it.
Boy A however is a very different beast. Whereas in the case of the Atkinson and a couple of other novels with similar elements I have read in the last 18 months, the crime is treated in a somewhat tawdry manner, as one more ingredient in the pot, for Trigell it isn't a throwaway nod, it's a real, multi-layered look into a crime which rocked British society. Though Jack Burridge is fictional so much of his story correlates to the original crime that Boy A is rather more a piece of faction beneath which lies both psychological analysis of a perpetrator and a modern social commentary. Boy A is not a sensationalist exploitative piece is my point, but a novel with something relevant and important to say about a crime so shocking it affected the national psyche.
The crime I am of course referring to is the murder of toddler James Bulger by schoolboys Robert Thompson and Jon Venables in 1993. I grew up not far from the area in which he was killed and I remember the local as well as national reaction, and I was only a year older than his killers at the time.
Some of the factional echoes Trigell describes include a Sun campaign to prevent the release of "Burridge" - something which actually occurred in real life. The novel also makes reference to the manner in which many adults gathered to hurl abuse at the police van carrying the two boys, I remember being asked to reflect upon the morality of this in an RE class: Should grown men and women be hurling profane abuse at two children no matter what they had done? Shouldn't they be questioning themselves their politicians and community leaders about the breakdown in society that had led us to this tragic situation? Didn't their behaviour further illustrate unnerving social decay?
In Boy A Jack Burridge is released from prison and tries to establish a new life, a job, friends, a girlfriend, but his past follows him almost as if he were under surveillance from it. Haunted and hunted Burridge will never escape his past actions.
The remarkable prescience shown by Jonathan Trigell in Genus is also bizarrely evident in Boy A. I took main character Burridge to be based more upon the life of Venables than that of Thompson. In the media coverage Thompson was more demonised and Venables depicted as the softer boy who was led along. In Boy A, Burridge only admits a share in the responsibility for the little girl's death when his contact with a kindly support worker is threatened. His psychologist is also hoping for something good to write for the sake of career progression. In the novel, though perhaps not in real life, there is a hint of doubt as to his guilt.
Boy A was published in 2004, in 2010 Jon Venables new identity was blown, he was also revealed to have violated his parole, had been involved in viewing child pornography and was returned to prison. A six year difference between the events of Boy A and a similar yet not quite real life mirroring. With this, alongside the riots of Genus if I were Jonathan Trigell, I'd be a bit worried I was psychic at this point. Boy A also reflects upon the hounding nature of the British press, a hot topic in the UK over the last 12 months.
With its real life counterpart set aside, Boy A is an intriguing novel about the human capacity for forgiveness, individual forgiveness, national forgiveness, and most importantly the forgiveness of ourselves. I was reminded of a quote from one of my favourite films 'The Shawshank Redemption' said by aging criminal Red as played by Morgan Freeman :
I recommend reading Boy A, Sarah Waters called it :Cause not a day goes by I don't feel regret. Not because I'm in here; or because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then: a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try to talk some sense to him, tell him the way things are. But I can't. That kid's long gone and this old man is all that left. I gotta live with that. Rehabilitated? It's just a bullshit word. So go ahead and stamp your forms, sonny, and stop wasting my time. Because to tell you the truth, I don't give a shit.
I love Sarah Waters anyway and can only concur. But beware if you had or have strong feelings regarding that crime or type of crime, you may find yourself having sympathy for the devil..... 10/10"a compelling narrative, a beautifully structured piece of writing, and a thought-provoking novel of ideas. It's a wonderful debut."
Wednesday, 29 June 2011
Book #53 The Suspicions Of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale
The Suspicions Of Mr Whicher Or The Murder At Road Hill House
Winner of The Galaxy Book Of The Year, British Book Awards 2009, Winner of the BBC Four Samuel Johnson Prize and Shortlisted for The Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger, this book has considerable pedigree. It was also A Richard and Judy Number One Bestseller, but never mind.
In a nice, middle class family, with a nice middle class home in June 1860, a toddler vanishes from his bed in the middle of the night. His bloodied, brutalised corpse is discovered the following day, but who did it? And why?
The Murder At Road Hill House isn't just A Locked Room Mystery, of the sort you see in many Agatha Christie novels or the sort you compete to solve when you play a game of Cluedo. It is THE Locked Room Mystery. The original real-life crime, which inspired popular detective fiction of the era, and the impact of which is still felt in crime fiction today. For those who don't know what is meant by Locked Room Mystery, it is now the fodder of Murder Mystery Weekends. A murder occurs in a country house, the doors were locked for the night, the only possible culprit has to have resided in the house that evening. It's been seen in Poirot, Marple, Doctor Who and even most recently in Steig Larsson's The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo albeit on a grander scale. In the case of Road Hill House, there was no elaborate dinner party involving a vicar, a disgruntled nephew, and a wealthy American socialite; just the Kent family, a husband and wife, seven children and a few servants.
Jack Whicher was among a new breed of plain clothes detectives recently established by Scotland Yard sent to Wiltshire to help solve the crime, but the locals and the nation at large reject his findings. What emerges is an astonishing picture of just how fallible and frankly rubbish the early judiciary system was in Britain. To question someone of good social standing or class, or of an age or gender that would be unseemly, is considered an affront to decency regardless of grounds, but it is the class system that truly is an over-riding factor. In addition, public speculation was apparently encouraged with any Tom Dick or Harry across the nation as a whole believing they had the right to have a say on the case. Juror meetings were held in public, cross examination was ridiculously biased, and the press were allowed a veritable free-for-all on editorial comment.
The utter lack of respect for the legal process is breathtaking, and Summerscale comments at length at the way in which though Mr Whicher had his suspicions, the nation had its suspicions of Whicher. The very existence of a plain clothes force was again considered an affront to decency, the privacy of the Englishman and his home were at stake. These values apparently worth more than the advantages of modern progress in crime solving. Following the Road Hill House case Whicher finds himself a laughing stock and his career is ruined. Whilst fictional detectives of the type written by Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens surged in popularity their real-life counterparts were considered 'vile' and 'grubby'.
Where this non fiction book succeeds is in the way in which it brings the story of The Kent Family in the earlier half of the book to life, almost but not quite in the manner of a Victorian novel. Where it slightly falters are the moments in which it begins to read like a PhD thesis, and becomes a bit dry and academic. What is certain though is the phenomenal amount of research and background work Summerscale has put into this book, and the respect it deserves for breathing new life into an old but highly influential tale. 9/10
Winner of The Galaxy Book Of The Year, British Book Awards 2009, Winner of the BBC Four Samuel Johnson Prize and Shortlisted for The Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger, this book has considerable pedigree. It was also A Richard and Judy Number One Bestseller, but never mind.
In a nice, middle class family, with a nice middle class home in June 1860, a toddler vanishes from his bed in the middle of the night. His bloodied, brutalised corpse is discovered the following day, but who did it? And why?
The Murder At Road Hill House isn't just A Locked Room Mystery, of the sort you see in many Agatha Christie novels or the sort you compete to solve when you play a game of Cluedo. It is THE Locked Room Mystery. The original real-life crime, which inspired popular detective fiction of the era, and the impact of which is still felt in crime fiction today. For those who don't know what is meant by Locked Room Mystery, it is now the fodder of Murder Mystery Weekends. A murder occurs in a country house, the doors were locked for the night, the only possible culprit has to have resided in the house that evening. It's been seen in Poirot, Marple, Doctor Who and even most recently in Steig Larsson's The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo albeit on a grander scale. In the case of Road Hill House, there was no elaborate dinner party involving a vicar, a disgruntled nephew, and a wealthy American socialite; just the Kent family, a husband and wife, seven children and a few servants.
Jack Whicher was among a new breed of plain clothes detectives recently established by Scotland Yard sent to Wiltshire to help solve the crime, but the locals and the nation at large reject his findings. What emerges is an astonishing picture of just how fallible and frankly rubbish the early judiciary system was in Britain. To question someone of good social standing or class, or of an age or gender that would be unseemly, is considered an affront to decency regardless of grounds, but it is the class system that truly is an over-riding factor. In addition, public speculation was apparently encouraged with any Tom Dick or Harry across the nation as a whole believing they had the right to have a say on the case. Juror meetings were held in public, cross examination was ridiculously biased, and the press were allowed a veritable free-for-all on editorial comment.
The utter lack of respect for the legal process is breathtaking, and Summerscale comments at length at the way in which though Mr Whicher had his suspicions, the nation had its suspicions of Whicher. The very existence of a plain clothes force was again considered an affront to decency, the privacy of the Englishman and his home were at stake. These values apparently worth more than the advantages of modern progress in crime solving. Following the Road Hill House case Whicher finds himself a laughing stock and his career is ruined. Whilst fictional detectives of the type written by Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens surged in popularity their real-life counterparts were considered 'vile' and 'grubby'.
Where this non fiction book succeeds is in the way in which it brings the story of The Kent Family in the earlier half of the book to life, almost but not quite in the manner of a Victorian novel. Where it slightly falters are the moments in which it begins to read like a PhD thesis, and becomes a bit dry and academic. What is certain though is the phenomenal amount of research and background work Summerscale has put into this book, and the respect it deserves for breathing new life into an old but highly influential tale. 9/10
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