Cover from publisher's website - Simon and Schuster
The Mangle Street Murders
Book 1: Gower Street Detective Series
I often commit the sin of looking at a book and making a judgement based on the novel’s cover. I did this recently, as I went to the public library trying to find a couple of books to read. I picked up three books, but this was the one I chose first. To me – this book looked like an easy read; let’s face it – it certainly doesn’t make murder look gruesome.
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2015
Page Count: 320 (but there are big margins, so not really).
In first picking up the book, the experience of reading it is actually rather fun. It is in my mind that the author is a bit of a whiz with word play and tongue in cheek humour, and certainly, her characters reflect this.
Early on we’re introduced to Sidney Grice, a personal detective. Of course, the newspapers call him a private detective, but he’s quick to address this inaccuracy. He’s a tea loving kind of guy who is into all kinds of inventions and seeks to solve his crimes using reason. He is pained to established himself as the kind of guy who doesn’t have a heart, and this function is instead played by his newly arrived ward, March. They are the complete opposites, but they compliment each other well. March hasn’t yet come of age in Victorian England, and Sidney Grice has taken her in, owing a ‘debt’ of some kind to her parents which is never disclosed. He instead offers the ‘charity’ is out of vanity – she knows how to write, and he wants someone to chronicle his crime-solving and sleuthing. This novel is in fact her writing many years later, noting that everyone has since died and she needs to create the record before she too passes.
The characters often have humorous back and forths – Sidney complaining about the temperature of his tea and the mediocrity of his hired help. He often criticises March for her feminine ways too; saying ‘beliefs’ of the 19th Century – ‘Don’t think too hard, or your brain will explode’, and reading them now just makes the statements all the more absurd.
The novel then centres on the murder of a young woman, who had been stabbed forty times in her own home while her husband slept in the adjoining room. The husband was arrested, and thought to be innocent of the crime – until he asks for further help proving his innocence from Mr Grice. The opposite happens, Sidney mounts the logical argument against him and the man is taken to the gallows early on in the novel. To me, I thought – right, that’s done, next crime to solve – but the novel lingers, as the question of the man’s innocence continues to rise and riots are popping up all around town.
Mr Grice takes exception to being called wrong – and argues against the presumption that William Ashby was innocent of the murder of Sarah. But evidence keeps popping up, appearing to make it look like William was innocent. As a reader, I couldn’t quite figure out where the novel was going – it certainly set Sidney up as looking too proud to see the facts. But then – every fact is flipped on its head, and the case starts to open up.
More bodies are discovered, notes claiming to be the murderer are found – fanciful stories of Italian men in clown wigs, which earlier founded fabricated, turn out to be quite true. But despite having all sorts of crimes and clues – they’re not quite adding up. And then, in one long sweeping speech, Sidney explains to March exactly what happened, wrapping up every clue and crime quite neatly. (There are no spoilers here today).
The only thing left to do then is for them to make one final arrest – and, they head off to do just that. But Sidney and March are too late – the other parties to the crime have left London by ship to start a new life overseas. The whole thing seems hopeless, and is made worse by March falling over and needing medical attention.
Speaking of which, March then heads off to see a doctor – who she shares with her stories, and he let’s on he is trying to pen a crime novel himself. She thanks Dr Conan Doyle, and clumsily seems to suggest that Sidney Grice was Dr Doyle’s model for Sherlock Holmes, although it is closer to the other way around. And – a newspaper reports a ship has been sunk killing everyone on board; neatly wrapping up the story, as the other guilty people were aboard it making their getaway.
In the end – William deserved his guilty conviction, Sidney Grice was declared logically brilliant, March writes her memoirs of the case, completing Sidney’s vanity and everything goes back to normal… until Book 2 I assume, there are 4 in the series to date.
Rating: 7/10
Not spectacular literature, but a light read. I’m on holidays, and I read it over three days, and it was certainly worth my time, but I won’t be racing out to hunt the sequel. The novel finishes tidily, and I think I can walk away from this crime-fighting duo! Worth a read if you’re after something mindless. The narration does all the walk with the clues and crimes and doesn’t ask you to figure it out for yourself; a whodunnit for dummies – my kind of leisure!