In the Kingdom of Mists - Softcover

Jackman, Jane

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0552770051 ISBN 13: 9780552770057

Publisher: Black Swan, 2003

Synopsis

"A lovely novel - compulsively readable and beautifully written" Colin Dexter London, 1900: while Monet paints beside the Thames, the bodies of two young women are dragged from its murky depths. Fledgling diplomat Oliver Craston happens to be present when a horribly mutilated body is found and is unwillingly drawn into the police investigation. The Foreign Office is nervous about his new acquaintances, M. Monet and his son, but a far greater danger stalks the floor above the Monets' hotel suite, given over to a hospital for wounded officers - and across the river in the slums of Lambeth are visions of horror beyond even the imagination of the artist.

About this title

About the Author:

Jane Jakeman is a well-known journalist and art historian and has worked for Oxford University Press. She is also the author of two 19th-century novels starring Lord Ambrose, The Egyptian Coffin and Let There Be Blood

From Publishers Weekly:

Vivid characters, notably Impressionist painter Claude Monet, distinguish this stand-alone historical by British author Jakeman (Death in the South of France). The shadow of the 1888 Jack the Ripper murders hangs over Scotland Yard's inquiries 12 years later into the deaths of two women whose mutilated corpses have been dragged from the Thames. Inspector Will Garrety, an honest and dogged investigator, is prepared to follow the trail wherever the evidence leads, but he's hampered by his superiors, who warn him to stay away from upper-class suspects connected with a secluded floor at the Savoy Hotel, which houses officers wounded in the vicious fighting of the Boer War. The author convincingly evokes fin-de-siecle London with its class and gender prejudices, but the early revelation of the killer's identity undercuts the suspense. Moreover, the path of the killer, whose personality will be familiar to Thomas Harris fans, never crosses that of Garrety's, making the ultimate resolution anticlimactic. Should Jakeman decide to make her detective into a series character, she might consider giving him a more challenging adversary and a better puzzle to crack in any sequel.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Black Swan
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0552770051
• ISBN 13: 9780552770057
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384