This took nearly a month to read, and I had to keep putting it aside to read other things. The main reason was its general dry nature and boredom. Sally and co become mixed up in the machinations of a very unpleasant man who has at least one murder to his credit, employs thugs and killers, and has political and economic power which is permitting him to create a weapon of mass destruction. There was a subplot where he blackmailed a politician to let him marry his daughter who was a colourless, insipid non-character.

There was one good thing in the book - Jim. I love Jim as a character and he develops more in this and shows more of his courage, tenacity, loyalty and heart. (Though why oh why does he fall for the bland, 'beautiful', daughter of the peer?) Plus he is writing plays though having no luck with having them taken up by theatres. So that earns the one star I've rated this book.

However, the rest of the book posed a lot of problems. I thought at first that I must have missed out a volume because Sally is 22, six years have passed since 'Ruby in the Smoke' and she is running a business as a financial consultant... in 1880-something? I can believe that a woman with her skills could have continued to do the bookkeeping for the photographic business as in the first volume and perhaps by word of mouth expanded her clientele, but that a woman would be trusted in business to give people financial advice about the stock market at that date - no I couldn't quite stretch to that. Perhaps the reason is a plot-based one, as it is important at certain points that Sally is no longer living with Fred and the rest of the other characters. Similarly, there is statement early on that Sally loves Webster (Fred's uncle) - I suppose as a sort of father figure - but bearing in mind he was absent in book 1 and we don't see them in a single scene together until about two thirds into the book that also seemed something not established.

Anyone who is a dog lover will not enjoy one particular scene which was pretty graphic. I won't say more.

Certain things happen in the last third of the book that I couldn't credit. They involve characters suddenly doing things which have not been properly established and are therefore not believable. I can't say much more without spoilers, but there are also a lot of very convenient things that happen. The last at the very end would be a disaster for a real nineteenth century woman. I also don't tend to like books where characters are killed off rather than the writer having to show how that character would develop/grow/conflict etc with the other characters; it strikes me as lazy writing as they now don't have to be dealt with and are safely enshrined as the late lamented. So all in all, this was only a one star read and despite there being two more books which I hope Jim went on to appear in, I can't be bothered to track those down. ( )

Quick entertaining fluff. It is nice to read entertaining fluff on occasion.

Okay, while I'm still enjoying the mysteries in the story, I am a bit disillusioned with the killing off of some of the major characters. Bah! ( )

Not YA material in my view. At least I don't want my young teenagers reading it. I was really enjoying the book until the last 3/4 when the plot began to reveal itself more fully. It sort of started to fall apart. I don't mind what happened in the book but just the way it was written. The writing started to lack at the end trying to force characters into situations that drive the plot... ( )

Accidentally read a spoiler which, well, spoiled this book for me. I lost interest in reading it.