By Bruce Alaxander
68 used and new from $0.95
Customer Rating:
First tagged by Joan Bird
Customer tags: british historical mystery, recommended
Review & Description
Riding high on the year's-best lists of the Chicago Tribune, Publishers Weekly, and The New York Times Book Review, the Fielding books have been proclaimed from the start as "wonderful, beautifully written, and altogether fun" (The Washington Post). Now the blind magistrate and his young assistant, Jeremy Proctor, face a baffling pair of deaths. A lord dies suddenly while attending a concert. A disembodied head washes up on the banks of the Thames. While investigating both, Sir John and Jeremy will learn a great deal more than they ever cared to about family, greed, deception..and the peculiar nature of homicide, high and low. Filled with the authentic sights and sounds of the era, this is in every way a worthy addition to a marvelous series.Bruce Alexander's books have the same addictive attention to detail as Patrick O'Brian's stories about the British navy. In fact, there really was a Sir John Fielding (1721-1780; would the Library of Congress lie?), the blind London magistrate so energetically restored to life by Alexander. And as he did in Person or Persons Unknown, Murder in Grub Street, Blind Justice, and Watery Grave, the author lets us observe Fielding from the distance of time, with middle-aged narrator Jeremy Proctor recalling his adventures as a 16-year-old alongside him. Here Jeremy plays a larger part in the investigations than he did in previous books. The two cases-- the poisoning of Lord and Lady Langinham, and the unknown identity of a severed head found in the Thames--are separated by money and class. Among the hundreds of little moments that make the book glow is Jeremy ordering coffee in a seedy dive, and being told by the waitress, "You only get that with a flash of lightning here, dearie"--meaning a shot of gin. --Dick Adler Read more
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