Lloyd Shepherd

Written with more tell than show, and the omnipresent head-hopping and change of point of view meant the style didn’t quite work for me but this is the only negative. A shadowy murder thriller in dark shady alleyways of old London, at others a swashbuckling adventure on the high seas. Best described as a historical thriller, this is a detective story told over more than one century following two separate paths that join strangely, but I love a different way of storytelling and in this the author has excelled.… (more)

In December 1811, two horrific murders shocked London’s East End district of Wapping. The cloth merchant Thomas Marr and his family are found mutilated in their home: father, mother, shop-boy and baby. Mere days later, the Williamsons, proprietors of the King’s Head pub, suffer the same fate. Known as the Ratcliffe Highway Murders, these events really happened, as did the clumsy investigation by the Shadwell magistrates that followed. Lloyd Shepherd makes this the basis of his eerily compelling novel: an early police procedural mixed with an ominous ancient evil. As the people of Wapping clamour for justice, Constable Charles Horton of the River Thames Police Office – under the aegis of his ex-navy boss, John Harriott – embarks on an investigation that, before it ends, will have ushered him into the very darkest places of the human soul...

For the full review, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2019/05/06/the-english-monster-lloyd-shepherd/… (more)