Just a Ramble : The Pickwick Murders by Heather Redmond

 

Title: The Pickwick Murders

Author: Heather Redmond

Publication: 26 October 2021

Format: Kindle eArc via Kensington & NetGalley

Amazon Description: 

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.

Double-Feature Friday : A Tale of Two Murders & Grave Expectations by Heather Redmond (Book Beginnings & Friday 56)

I did it again. 

I requested a book from NetGalley without paying attention to the fact that it's the fourth in a series I hadn't even heard of before. It's a shame, in a way, because it's a series I could have been reading for a few years now. Thanks to Kindle Unlimited and my library I've been able to fly through at least the first two and may even sneak the third in before getting ready for thee ol' release date for the fourth.

Stranger things have happened. 

I actually finished the first one Monday so it could have easily been a non-linkup post ... or at least this week's Tuesday Intro & Teaser Tuesday ... but then I got it into my head that I could dive right into the next one and I already had a Tuesday post planned so ... Double-Feature Friday it is. 

 

Title: A Tale of Two Murders

Author: Heather Redmond 

Publication: 31 July 2018 - Kensington Books

Format: Kindle eBook

Amazon Description: 

In the winter of 1835, young Charles Dickens is a journalist on the rise at the Evening Chronicle. Invited to dinner at the estate of the newspaper's co-editor, Charles is smitten with his boss's daughter, vivacious nineteen-year-old Kate Hogarth. They are having the best of times when a scream shatters the pleasant evening. Charles, Kate, and her father rush to the neighbors' home, where Miss Christiana Lugoson lies unconscious on the floor. By morning, the poor young woman will be dead.

When Charles hears from a colleague of a very similar mysterious death a year ago to the date, also a young woman, he begins to suspect poisoning and feels compelled to investigate. The lovely Kate offers to help—using her social position to gain access to the members of the upper crust, now suspects in a murder. If Charles can find justice for the victims, it will be a far, far better thing than he has ever done. But with a twist or two in this most peculiar case, he and Kate may be in for the worst of times . . .

Ramble-y Teaserish Stuff

We're introduced to twenty-two year old Charles Dickens who is working as a journalist for the Evening Chronicle and beyond enthralled with Kate Hogarth, the daughter of his co-editor. At the very onset of the book Charles it at the Hogarth house for Epiphany when they hear screams from a neighboring house. They go over en masse to see if they can be of assistance and before the night is over, a young girl has died. Charles discovers that exactly one year prior a similar occurrence happened in the same neighborhood.  He and Kate do not believe that it was merely a coincidence, hence a tale of two murders (although, of course, there may be more). So begins the tale of Charles Dickens -- journalist, aspiring playwright and author, and half of a crime fighting duo a la Tommy & Tuppence or Nick & Nora. 

The book is loaded with historical details. Perhaps a little too loaded as, at times, it seemed to drag and that took away from the actual story. All in all, though, curiosity over what really happened won out and I'm glad that I saw it through to the end ... and on to the next ...

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Title: Grave Expectations

Author: Heather Redmond 

Publication: 30 July 2019 - Kensington Books

Format: Kindle eBook

Amazon Description: 

London, June 1835: In the interest of being a good neighbor, Charles checks in on Miss Haverstock, the elderly spinster who resides in the flat above his. But as the young journalist and his fiancée Kate ascend the stairs, they are assaulted by the unmistakable smell of death. Upon entering the woman’s quarters, they find her decomposing corpse adorned in a faded gown that looks like it could have been her wedding dress, had she been married. A murderer has set the stage. But to what purpose?

As news of an escaped convict from Coldbath Fields reaches the couple, Charles reasonably expects the prisoner, Ned Blood, may be responsible. But Kate suspects more personal motives, given the time and effort in dressing the victim. When a local blacksmith is found with cut manacles in his shop and arrested, his distraught wife begs Charles and Kate to help. At the inquest, they are surprised to meet Miss Haverstock’s cold and haughty illegitimate daughter, shadowed by her miserably besotted companion. Secrets shrouded by the old woman’s past may hold the answers to this web of mystery. But Charles and Kate will have to risk their lives to unveil the truth . . . .

Ramble-y Teaserish Stuff

I know, I know. Spoilers right in the description! Of course, seeing as how Charles and Kate actually existed it may not be a spoiler at all that they end up engaged .... married .... parents of ten children .... separated .... so on and so forth. For now, though, we're still in the blissful reminiscence stage of things even if fictionalized by Heather Redmond. And, while still in happy blissful mode, we have another mysterious death to occupy Charles and Kate as they wait to be able to wed. I kind of love that Kate was actually hoping for a mystery to help pass the time. She's my kind of girl.

Again, the pacing feels off at times. It moved along a bit better than the first book, but "less is more" still doesn't seem to have been a concept considered. You can easily skip a paragraph here, a full page there, and possibly a chapter or two. You probably won't feel like you've missed anything at all. Of course, I still have every intention of reading the next one ... or the one after that ... and ... hopefully the pace picks up. 

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As always, Friday 56 (share a blurb from the 56th page or 56% mark) is hosted at Freda's Voice & Book Beginnings (share the first few sentences) is at Rose City Reader.

WWW Wednesday -- 20 October 2021

I've been hunting for new places to linkup to since my reading life has gone a bit haywire ... but in a good way. I've typically done Tuesdays and Fridays but what about the books that get started or even finished in the meantime? I have so many posts piled up waiting to be published right now and the books keep coming in and they keep getting read and I don't seem to be able to stop myself ... nor do I necessarily want to. I've got a mini vacation coming up in December and I've already got posts ready to auto-publish when I'm gone, but that only takes care of a couple of days at most.

Way back in early 2017, before my life started being problematic, I participated in WWW Wednesdays over at Taking On A World Of Words. I only meant to take a brief respite but, well, better late than not at all, right?

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?

What did you recently finish reading?

What do you think you’ll read next?

My Current Read : 

At the time of this typing, I am reading Jane K. Cleland's Jane Austen's Lost Letters, thanks to NetGalley and the kind folks at St. Martin's/Minotaur. I was more than a bit hesitant about starting this because it's the fourteenth book in a series I have never laid eyes on before. If you've been here ... ever ... you probably know about my fixation on reading things in order. BUT. There must be some exceptions and Jane Austen will probably always warrant an exception being made to just about every rule.

Luckily, so far anyway, I don't feel at all lost for not having read any of the previous thirteen books in the series. Even better? I now have thirteen new-to-me books on the ever-growing TBR. I don't know much about the world of antiques and never really figured I would care to know, but now I'm more than a bit fascinated at least with what goes into the art of authenticating letters. It helps when those letters may have been written by one of my favorite people. It's too bad the expert on the method that most intrigued me (dealing with weight and pressure points and whatnot) got knocked off fairly early in the book. I certainly hope Josie Prescott is good at solving murders and the person is dealt with most heinously. I'm guessing all will be resolved satisfactorily.  It is the fourteenth book, after all.

Recently Finished :

Thanks to another NetGalley grab, I read the first two books in Heather Redmond's A Dickens of a Crime series -- A Tale of Two Murders and Grave Expectations. Those will be reviewed/teased/posted this coming Friday and then the ARC in question probably next week. To be completely honest, had it not been for the ARC, I might not have bothered to continue after the first book. At least it was better than another ARC that I was in the process of slogging my way through. That one ended up making me a bit ranty so I scrapped it and took a mental health break with Maureen Johnson and Jay Cooper's amazing Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village -- which you can find rambled about and teased here. After my brain breather I continued on with the second in the series. I may not squeeze the third one in, but I'll likely backtrack for it at some point.

What's Next :

I do, of course, have Heather Redmond's The Pickwick Murders coming due for review. That's set for release on the 26th of October which is a Tuesday which works perfectly with the regular swing of things around here. 

Beyond that, I have a bunch of back ARCs that got lost in the shuffle that I could/should get around to reading and there are two coming up in mid-November that I could grab. What I'll probably do, though, is get a start on Robert Bryndza's Kate Marshall series with Nine Elms. The ARC for the third in the series is already calling my name and that's not out until December. I should have plenty of time for the first two. Besides, I didn't have an "N" title for my Alphabet Soup challenge yet.