The opening of this book is a real firecracker. First we get a comment from a present day literary professor, saying the authenticity of the following account is dubious at best. Then we dive straight into the shady lanes of London, where our narrator murders a complete stranger, “for practice”, then has an oyster dinner. Thank you, you have me interested!

Unfortunately the bulk of this book doesn’t quite live of to the beginning. The plot is dense and engaging, but the reversed chronology gives it’s main points away already at the beginning. The rest of the twists are a bit too predictable, and overall the writing is too meticulous for me. I’m not a big enough fan of historical fiction or bibliography to comfortably want to dwell on a million little details. I get jumpy and impatient. Plain and simple: I guess I would have wanted more gaslit London back alleys, knives and opium dens, and fewer letters from France and descriptions of library architecture.

But please don’t take my word for it. This is really not my genre. If you’re a lover of an old-fashioned story written in a style that feels authentic but never archaic, this might be just what you’re looking for. ( )

The Meaning of Night
Michael Cox
Nov 30, 2009 10:47 AM
A long and absorbing novel, set in Victorian London and Northhampshire, of love and betrayal, revenge, and destiny. It is written as a confession of Edward Glyver (alias Glapthorn), after he flees the consequences of killing his rival, Phoebus Daunt. Glyver learns gradually, from his reading of diaries, and correspondence, that the woman he thought of as his mother was caring for him as a great favor to her best friend. His true mother was married to Lord Tansor, who owned a great fortune, and when Tansor could not forgive the debts of his wife’s father she became determined to not give him an heir, even though she was pregnant at the time. She went to France for the duration of the pregnancy, gave birth and her friend, Simone Glyver, who had traveled with her, came home with the child. Edward is a scholar, and is sent to Eton, but expelled due to a malicious scheme by Phoebus Duant, who by coincidence is at Eton by the grace of Lord Tansor, who sees Phoebus as a replacement for his heir. Edward travels, and returns to England after the death of his supposed mother, and reading her diaries, deciphers the truth of his birth, and searches for proof. He falls in love, blindly, with Emily Carteret, another relation of Lord Tansor, and when he secures incontrovertible proof of his birthright, he shares it with her with her for safekeeping. She destroys it because she had loved Phoebus Daunt all along, and Daunt had long suspected Edward, and had been running criminal schemes to make money and keep from discovery. The book is rich in period detail, ornamented with footnotes to events and places in Victorian England, but a little florid in its prose, and somewhat slow in its plot. ( )

First Mystery Club ( )

"After I killed the red haired man I took myself out for an oyster dinner." Who doesn't love a book that begins this way? (Although I will admit, I think I may have misquoted a bit.) I love, love, love this book. I wanted to devour it. I would pick it up, and become so absorbed I would read until the light faded. My husband had to turn on lamps as he walked through the room, so I wouldn't go blind. Nearing the end of the text, I made myself stop and slow the pace. I didn't want it to end. This book really touched me. I can't quite explain it, but when I was finished reading, I felt like the book was still with me. I couldn't find a new book for quite some time. ( )

I don't know. I just don't know. In someways this was my kind of book, in some ways it wasn't.

It's a thick Victorian set mystery. The book is read as a confession, of course told in the first person. So in that way I had to view it a bit differently. Some people will complain that it's long and most of it is drawn out just by the narrator talking about things and not actually doing it. Well, if you read it as a confession, if you read it as though this is from an actual person sitting down with a pen and paper and unburdening himself of his crimes and passions, then who are we to say that it's drawn out? It's how someone lived and thought.

The reader knows the truth from the beginning, but it's interesting to see how the narrator finally finds the truth. And it's interesting to read inside his mind while he commit such crimes and talked to certain people, and so on.

I can't say I was completely satisfied with the ending. I admit, I was thinking it would go a different way. Either my way or the way the author wrote it, is still not a happy ending.

I can't say too much without giving things away, but I really don't know what kind of person to recommend this to. I'd say it's worth a try to anyone. You may be surprised. ( )