I am a fan of Andrew Taylor's writings and this one didn't disappoint. Set in the 1930's, Lydia Langstone tries to trace the mystery of the disappearance of the previous owner of the house where she is staying in Bleeding House Square. Taylor captures the atmosphere of 1930's London and keeps us reading right up until the end when the mystery is solved. ( )

Bleeding Heart Square is not your typical British murder mystery at all. I've seen it labeled in some reviews as "Dickensian" which might actually be an appropriate description on several levels. As a matter of fact, at times I was a bit taken aback when the author brought up things like automobiles and typewriters, because the tone of this book often made me feel like I was reading a story set in the Victorian period. But it's definitely set squarely in 1930s England, between the wars.

Bleeding Heart Square follows Lydia Langstone, who has left her husband Marcus and has moved into the only place she can go -- to her father's flat in Bleeding Heart Square. There she meets the other tenants and becomes involved in the mystery of whatever happened to Phillipa Penhow, the former owner of the house at Bleeding Heart Square, while trying to sort out her own life. Along the way, the reader is given little hints about the mystery of Phillipa Penhow through snippets of her diary and other events taking place all around Lydia.

The book is more than a mystery -- it's a look at interwar Britain in terms of class, economics, society and politics, as well as what's changing and what's staying the same. This is a book that you will want to think about some more after having read it -- not just a piece of historical fiction or an historical mystery. So while I would definitely recommend it to British mystery fans, I'd also suggest it for people interested in interwar Britain in an historical context. The book often is slow and sloggy while the author is laying the groundwork, but it picks up a lot of speed and you'll find yourself turning page after page in order to try to make sense of the clues you're given by the author. You might be tempted to turn to the end (I was and slapped my own hand), but don't. Overall this was a good read. ( )

This historical mystery held my interest and kept me turning the pages quickly. I particularly enjoyed the complex mystery, though I occasionally had to flip back to remind myself of details. The protagonist was likeable, and I liked her strength and poise. The political parts of the novel were a bit boring. Fortunately, there weren't many of those. ( )

Storytelling or Storyweaving? BLEEDING HEART SQUARE is a classic example of a carefully woven psychological suspense story written by one of the English masters. Mind you, this isn't going to be a book for everyone. It's one of those stories that starts out with central threads that slowly are interwoven towards the conclusion.

Something has happened in connection to 7 Bleeding Heart Square. In 1934, Lydia Langstone seeks refuge there from her violent husband. It's a decaying London cul-de-sac, in a time that is feeling the threat of war. It's a seedy part of the city and the people who live in Number 7 are all somewhat marginalised. Not least of all Lydia's estranged father, Captain Ingleby-Lewis, who is determinedly drinking himself into oblivion. Turning to the Captain is safe for Lydia - she's got a difficult relationship with her mother, at the very least, a supporter of her abusive husband. For Lydia life with her father brings no expectations, a brand-new start. Despite the spectre of the scandal of a divorce, the problem is not Lydia and her father, who learn to rub along together surprisingly quickly, but rather events that seem to weave in and out of the house at Number 7. Unknown to Lydia the middle-aged spinster that owns the house - Miss Penhow vanished 4 years earlier, and there are people who are very keen to find out what happened to her. Many of those people make their way to Number 7 as a starting point, unaware of other's interest. The story unfolds between Lydia's day to day life, as she slowly becomes aware of things not quite right in the house and surrounding area; and a narrative of another life - eventually revealed as Miss Penhow's own words.

There's a sense of slowness about parts of the book that the reader needs to accept for what they are. Taylor is an expert at taking the reader just to the brink of a discovery, a change, an event; then rapidly moving the focus somewhere else. As the day to day events of Lydia's life seem to distract from Miss Penhow's own narrative; as the story of Miss Penhow slowly reveals itself, the action moves around and changes direction and weaves itself slowly into a full picture. The overall atmosphere of the book sets it well in 1930's London - the seedy nature of the location, the underlying political torment in a society feeling the threat of war, the clash of the aristocracy and the less well off. Even the forays into the countryside illustrate the difference between lives then and now.

Not a book for fans of crimes up front, heaps of action, investigations and rapidfire pace, BLEEDING HEART SQUARE is psychological suspense at its strongest. It's a manner of storyweaving that Taylor seems to excel in. All the while that the story builds to it's final conclusion there's a knowledge that something has happened, there's an assumption that something dreadful has happened to Miss Penhow but there's no proof and there's no certainty. At the same time, the reader can't help but wonder if Number 7 Bleeding Heart Square will somehow weave Lydia's fate for her as well. ( )

Bleeding Heart Square takes place in the 1930s, but has the gothic flavor found in many historical novels written today. Andrew Taylor even has the "dear reader" narrator in parts of the novel. In fact, if there's any problem with the novel, it's the fact that I kept seeing Victorian characters. I really enjoyed his earlier novel An Unpardonable Crime with the young Poe as a character and will continue to read him. ( )