A Tale of Two Murders
Crime, Mystery
Heather Redmond
A Dickens of a Crime, Book # 1
Kensington Publishing Corporation
July 31st 2018
eBooK
338
English
November 12, 2020 November 23, 2020
On the eve of the Victorian era, London has a new sleuth . . .
In the winter of 1835, young Charles Dickens is a journalist on the rise at the Evening Chronicle. Invited to dinner at the estate of the newspaper's co-editor, Charles is smitten with his boss's daughter, vivacious nineteen-year-old Kate Hogarth. They are having the best of times when a scream shatters the pleasant evening. Charles, Kate, and her father rush to the neighbors' home, where Miss Christiana Lugoson lies unconscious on the floor. By morning, the poor young woman will be dead.
When Charles hears from a colleague of a very similar mysterious death a year ago to the date, also a young woman, he begins to suspect poisoning and feels compelled to investigate. The lovely Kate offers to help--using her social position to gain access to the members of the upper crust, now suspects in a murder. If Charles can find justice for the victims, it will be a far, far better thing than he has ever done. But with a twist or two in this most peculiar case, he and Kate may be in for the worst of times...
About the book
A Tale of Two Murders is the first book in the series dedicated to Charles Dickens as an investigator. Charles is a young journalist in England in the 1800s with a somewhat troubled past due to his father but who wants to prove that he is not like him. One evening he is having dinner with his boss and suddenly they hear a cry in the house next door. The young daughter of the neighbour is ill so the two, with the oldest daughter of hi boss, run to help the family. Unfortunately, however, the girl dies in mysterious circumstances as she is young and in full health.
Charles does not rest easy especially when he finds out from his friend and colleague that another girl of the same age died under the same circumstances exactly a year earlier.
What I think
I read the book thanks to Partners in Crime. Not directly but in the near future there will be a review of the third book in the series that I was able to read thanks to them (and the author). I liked the third book so much that I wanted to read the first two as well. I couldn’t find the second in the library but I was able to borrow the first so obviously I started reading it right away. I liked this book too, I liked Charles’s introduction, how he and Kate (the boss’s daughter) meet and get to know each other and it was interesting to discover the origins even of the other characters.
Also I like the fact that it takes an important writer and turns him into the protagonist.
Style
The chapters are not very long, they are easy to read except for a few words in “old English” that I didn’t know. Obviously having read the book in English I already knew of this limitation, but surely it is only my limitation. Apart from this (which happens very few times anyway) the chapters are very smooth and you get lost in the pages of the book especially towards the end.
Conclusion
I will definitely continue with the series, both reading the second book when I find it in a library and the next books in the years to come.
Thanks for the review! You can ask your library to purchase Grave Expectations or do an interlibrary loan. There are usually forms on the library website.
So sweet of you for stopping by! Thank you so much. Oh you are right! I didn’t think of that. Thanks for the suggestion
Please keep up with this great series! All the best!