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Publisher:
Transworld (Random House) |
Release
Date: 3 February 2003 |
ISBN:
0552770051 |
Awards:
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Format
Reviewed: Paperback |
Buy
it at Amazon US || UK |
Read
an Excerpt |
Genre:
Historical Crime (1900 London) |
Reviewed:
2003 |
Reviewer:
Rachel A Hyde |
Reviewer
Notes: Some graphic descriptions |
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In
The Kingdom of Mists
By Jane
Jakeman
In the
winter of 1900, the artist Monet came to London to sketch the misty
atmospheric Thames views. With him came his eldest son, and they
stayed at the Savoy; history only records that Monet seemed in a
depressed state throughout. In this novel, Jane Jakeman (author
of the Lord Ambrose Malfine series) suggests that this might not
only have been due to the gloomy weather and plunges the reader
into an intense and almost literary tale of murder, showing us the
seamy underbelly of Victorian London a la Anne Perry. Monet muses
on an earlier visit, the death of his wife and changing fortunes
while overhead on the top floor of the hotel wounded officers back
from the Boer War convalesce, as well as other more sinister happenings.
Naïve young diplomat Oliver Craston is present whilst another
body is pulled from the Thames and is drawn into Inspector Garrety's
investigation, while Garrety's unhappy wife is forced to try and
find a cure for her childless state. These disparate strands are
all set to converge, while a psychopathic killer stalks the streets
offering us insights into his twisted mind.
If you like your whodunits fast paced,
then this probably won't be for you. There is a lot in here, and
only part of it relates to crime--a flaw of the book being its lack
of momentum making the mystery part something of a sideline at times.
In turns social comment, whodunit, literary endeavor and partly
factual description of Monet's eventful life (there are even twelve
pages of his paintings), Jakeman's talent lies in creating a very
impressionistic impression of London in 1900, and I came away from
the book full of misty dawns, gray turbid waters and gas-lit rain-washed
streets and also of places where the psychopath has his own chapter
and we get a glimpse into hell. A book to read slowly and savor,
and for all those who think that crime writing cannot also be literary.
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