234. & 235. The Trouble With Harry & A Metropolitan Murder
The Trouble With Harry by Katie McAlister - I'm pretty sure I'd either read something else by this author, or planned to, so I picked this one up as part of a swap.
The eponymous Harry is a former spy whose wife's untimely death has left him with five incredibly willful children, so he decides the best thing to do is advertise for a new wife. After all, he's not all that fussy as long as they're sensible and clever enough not to bore him rigid.
One of the women who answers his advertisement is Plum, who's trying to escape a dodgy past where she thought she was married to a man and discovered later that the marriage wasn't the real thing, thus leaving her disgraced. Plum also has a secret of her own in that she's the author of a notorious book of sexual positions, so both her secrets are a major issue where any marriage is concerned.
The book is set in a not-quite-specified historical period that tries to be Georgian. The major problem I had with it, unlike my usual difficulty with anachronisms, was that Harry immediately falls for Plum in a major way and is delighted when he discovers she's also quite a lusty individual - this felt unlikely, given the ostensible time period, and the sex scenes somewhat overwhelm the plot (such as it is).
A Metropolitan Murder by Lee Jackson - I think it would be fair to say I've read a lot of historical detective fiction in my time, set in all time periods, and can completely understand why the Victorian era is still so fascinating for authors even now.
In A Metropolitan Murder, the body of a former streetwalker is found strangled in the final carriage of the last train of the day on the newly-opened Metropolitan line. Inspector Decimus Webb, a singularly unsympathetic character who I disliked from my first dealings with him, is brought in to investigate.
I think I got about a quarter of the way into this book before I decided that actually I didn't care who or why. All the characters seemed sanctimonious and unpleasant so it was impossible to summon up the necessary enthusiasm to finish A Metropolitan Murder. The series continues with The Welfare of the Dead, but sadly we'll be parting ways...
The eponymous Harry is a former spy whose wife's untimely death has left him with five incredibly willful children, so he decides the best thing to do is advertise for a new wife. After all, he's not all that fussy as long as they're sensible and clever enough not to bore him rigid.
One of the women who answers his advertisement is Plum, who's trying to escape a dodgy past where she thought she was married to a man and discovered later that the marriage wasn't the real thing, thus leaving her disgraced. Plum also has a secret of her own in that she's the author of a notorious book of sexual positions, so both her secrets are a major issue where any marriage is concerned.
The book is set in a not-quite-specified historical period that tries to be Georgian. The major problem I had with it, unlike my usual difficulty with anachronisms, was that Harry immediately falls for Plum in a major way and is delighted when he discovers she's also quite a lusty individual - this felt unlikely, given the ostensible time period, and the sex scenes somewhat overwhelm the plot (such as it is).
In A Metropolitan Murder, the body of a former streetwalker is found strangled in the final carriage of the last train of the day on the newly-opened Metropolitan line. Inspector Decimus Webb, a singularly unsympathetic character who I disliked from my first dealings with him, is brought in to investigate.
I think I got about a quarter of the way into this book before I decided that actually I didn't care who or why. All the characters seemed sanctimonious and unpleasant so it was impossible to summon up the necessary enthusiasm to finish A Metropolitan Murder. The series continues with The Welfare of the Dead, but sadly we'll be parting ways...
