Title: The Pickwick Murders Author: Heather Redmond
Publication: 26 October 2021
Format: Kindle eArc via Kensington & NetGalley
London, January 1836: Just weeks before the release of his first book, Charles is intrigued by an invitation to join the exclusive Lightning Club. But his initiation in a basement maze takes a wicked turn when he stumbles upon the corpse of Samuel Pickwick, the club’s president. With the victim’s blood literally on his hands, Charles is locked away in notorious Newgate Prison.
Now it’s up to Kate to keep her framed fiancé from the hangman’s noose. To solve this labyrinthine mystery, she is forced to puzzle her way through a fiendish series of baffling riddles sent to her in anonymous poison pen letters. With the help of family and friends, she must keep her wits about her to corner the real killer—before time runs out and Charles Dickens meets a dead end . . .
Ramble-y Stuff
It still being October, and the third book in the series being A Christmas Carol Murder, I opted to skip ahead to the eARC sitting on my NetGalley shelf and read the fourth book out of order.
I'm not sure I'll bother to backtrack. Or continue.
If you read my
Double-Feature Friday post about the first two books then you already know that I've had issues with the pacing and overabundance of unnecessary information. Word drivel. I was hopeful that by the fourth book the editing would be a bit tighter and the pacing a bit faster. I wasn't expecting something as gripping and un-put-downable as, say,
Robert Bryndza ... but I still held out hope.
The description indicated a heavier focus on Kate and I've grown quite fond of Kate and several of the other characters. I complained that the first book had too much information and dragged. The second one's pacing was slightly better but the story itself? I skipped full paragraphs (and pages) and didn't feel like I missed out on anything.
This time? If anything it was even more scattered and sluggish.
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (aka The Pickwick Papers) was originally published and read as nineteen separate installments over a matter of twenty months. All together it is a huge marvelous piece of work and, next to A Christmas Carol, it is my favorite Dickens. I can't ever read it all at once, though. I don't think I can read Redmond all at once, either. Maybe that was the intention.
For me, it didn't work, even with the extra Kate. Maybe you'll love it.
These are just my ramblings, after all.
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