The Strings of Murder de Oscar de Muriel

Penguin UK - Michael Joseph (12 février 2015)

Paperback, 407 pages

I thought the cover was really great, wasn't it? Yep, one again, the cover got me! And the Ripper case. And the victorian era. And Scotland! With all that, the book could only be great, right? 

What's the blurb?

Jonathan Strange meets Jonathan Creek in this blistering crime debut set in Victorian Edinburgh.

Edinburgh, 1888. A virtuoso violinist is brutally killed in his home. But with no way in or out of the locked practice room, the murder makes no sense.

Fearing a national panic over a copycat Ripper, Scotland Yard sends Inspector Ian Frey to investigate under the cover of a fake department specializing in the occult. However, Frey's new boss, Detective 'Nine-Nails' McGray, actually believes in such nonsense.

McGray's tragic past has driven him to superstition, but even Frey must admit that this case seems beyond reason. And once someone loses all reason, who knows what they will lose next...

What's good about it?

It's not always the case, but in this book, the characters are not what interested me most. It's the plot, which is well done. The dead comes one after another without logical reason, to a well-designed end and an explanation that is not only plausible, but well explained. This is the big advantage of this book because I have to say I was a little scared at the start of a book with a lousy supernatural explanation (as it was question of a closed room and a Department of mysterious case).

The characters, meanwhile, are well characterized. They each have their own life and differ much from each other. Unfortunately, I disliked the main character, Ian Frey, who happens to be a man imbued of his person, racist against the Scots and cultivating his sense of superiority. Honestly, I rarely dislike a central character that much... In general, the author manages to make us like his hero! The book is told in the first person, so we are entitled to all Frey's personal reflections, as well as those he launches at other. As he describes McGray and the others, it is hard to find them endearing. McGray is painted like a caricature of Scots, which is a shame. In the end, it seems that only Frey is worth something (which surely reflects his feelings), but he's so unpleasant that I didn't like him.

If we put aside the fact that Frey portrayes Edinburgh as a horrible place, smelly and dirty, I still enjoyed being there. The descriptions are well made and we feel the cold and wet of the Scottish winter. So it is a good point for the author who knows how to make us feel his characters feelings.

In a nutshell

A good and well done story marred by a very unpleasant main character, but with well made descriptions, it's a 3.5 / 5 for me.

Disclaimer: An e-galley of this title was provided to me by the publisher. No review was promised and the above is an unbiased review of the novel.

Stalk me (early review)

de Richard Parker

Exhibit A (25 février 2014)

384 pages - 16.99 $

I thought the idea was original and topical... Internet is full of videos taken by people who not only stop to watch an accident, but film events with little consideration for the victims. I've seen Stalk Me on Netgalley and I thank Exhibit A for the book.

The blurb

Your worst nightmare just went viral…

After being involved in a severe car accident and a vicious roadside assault, Beth Jordan wakes briefly to discover a coach party of students recording the aftermath with their phones.

Beth furiously attacks the crowd before being restrained and lapsing into a coma.

When she wakes in hospital, Beth is horrified when she’s told the video clips have been shared online and that millions of people around the world have now seen the incident.

The driver of the car she collided with has vanished without trace and Beth needs the recordings to help piece together exactly what happened.

But somebody is viciously murdering the owners of the clips and deleting them. What is concealed within those moments and can she find the survivors before the digital fragments of the event disappear forever?

What I think of it

The story mainly focuses on Beth Jordan, who tries to understand why a person could assault when she was crawling out of her car after the accident. She is smart, resourceful and courageous and as we identify with her, we're as resolved as her to discover the truth about these videos. The other characters in the novel appear briefly, often the time of the disappearance of their video, apart from the owner of the latest video and his family that we follow a longer time. So we did not really have time to connect with them, especially since they are not, a priori, really likable. They have put their online video with touts and insulting titles for Beth they name "bitch".

The pace intensifies progressively. Initially, the novel focuses on the return to life of Beth, on her discovery of the death of her husband and the fact that life went on without her. This part is very well led, it allows us to feel Beth's feelings and to understand later how horrible are the online videos. When Beth understands that they disappear go, she tries to contact the owners to find that they die one after the other. From there, the tempo accelerates as Beth must find the other owners before they disappear. Her purpose is both to warn them of the danger and finding what, in the video, is so compromising. What was once a simple quest for Beth who wanted to see the last moments of her husband, while she passed out, eventually became a real enigma. Knowing who wants to remove the video and witnesses and why doing so become her priority... and ours.

I do not like movies where the main character risks her/his life by systematically taking the wrong decision and in which the villain keeps coming back. It has the knack of getting on my nerves - literally. I usually end up yelling at the character "come now, don't go there", "c'mon, end him, or he'll come back!" I must say it's very rare that a character listens to me (if not ever) and when the film ends, the cushion of the couch lost some feathers. This book makes me feel the same way. Beth runs after the truth and harvests trouble but carry on her race anyway. So for fans of this kind of suspense, this book is excellent: go buy it! I must say that the author is very good to describe vivid scenes, especially those of fear and panic.

One thing I liked about Stalk me is the thought behind the story. What society do we form when people film others's misfortune, use it to collect crumbs of glory on the Internet or even make money with it. When people allow themselves to insult a person seen in a video without knowing his history, without knowing the context in which that person is. The ease with which people, sheltered behind the screen, criticize, injure, insult or demean others is present in the book and it reflects reality.

In a nutshell

A very interesting story, a main character in which it's easy to identify yourself, a never ending irritating suspense that blows you away. This is a 3.5/5.