Renewed it several times from the library..... just had trouble getting into it and keeping the momentum going. Quit at about 1/3rd read. ( )

I really really wanted to like this book but I could not stay focused on it and kept having to go back and re-read parts. I might try it again later.

For some odd reason, the author chose not to use quotation marks which made this book unnecessarily difficult to read. ( )

I'm at a loss of what to say about this book... its length (700 pages) and detailed writing with historical accuracy makes it an incredible book to read. However, it's not a very enjoyable one.

The book itself moves at a twisted and confusing pace, all at once intense but slow. While this type of writing is typical of the hard boiled detective novel, not really having a true climatic moment, it is extremely hard to keep up over the sheer length of the book. So much of the book is backstory that could've been condensed and did not need to be told through short flashbacks. These scenes are very jarring and occur so regularly that the reader struggles to figure out where in time they are.

Plot choices as well are debatable as one character ends up not dead and the red herring employed ended up being a huge and grotesque coincidence. This part especially left me cold.

Literary choices:
With no speech marks, the book can be hard to read in places. Some description can be seen as speech, etc. I can understand the literary choice of not using quotations marks, but with the sheer length and detail this book has, I do not believe this book fits with that stylistic choice. The book also has far too many characters to keep track of, with names far too similar: Shade, Shore, Shane, Allen, Allan, Foole, Fludd, etc. perhaps this is only an issue for me, but I've read War and Peace and had an easier time telling the characters apart.

Overall if you enjoy historical crime noir fiction, you will probably enjoy this book, but just be prepared for the sheer length, slow pace, and complexity of reading it. Just don't pick it up, read the review on the front cover that compares it to Wilkie Collins and Sherlock Holmes and think you're diving into something completely different. ( )

William Pinkerton, American detective, is in Victorian London chasing down the notorious criminal, Edward Shade. Pinkerton believes Shade to be both the criminal his late father Allan Pinkerton could never catch and a man who worked for and then betrayed his father during the American Civil War. Adam Foole is a con artist in London searching for his lost love, Charlotte Reckitt, who he believes to be in danger. Pinkerton is also seeking Reckitt as his last chance to find Shade.

Pinkerton and Foole are driven by injustices, mistakes and losses from their past, but both have an imperfect understanding of what happened which colours their perceptions and their plans to resolve their open wounds. As their lives slowly collide they both realise that what was black-and-white is now shades of grey.

The author paints Victorian London in detail and from various aspects - geography, culture, the lives of rich and poor, the criminal underworld - but always in muted colours shrouded by the ever-present fog. This is a book of unrelenting darkness with few lighter moments. The ending gives release for Pinkerton, but we are left wondering about the other characters we have become invested in, even liked - Reckitt, Foole and his accomplices, Molly and Fludd - which leaves us a little short-changed.

The book begins slowly but gathers pace to an exciting set piece climax. Recommended. ( )