The House on Vesper Sands by Paraic O'Donnell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A clever ghost story set in Victorian London.
FIRST LINE: "In Half Moon Street, just as she came near to the house, Esther Tull felt the first gentleness of the snow."
THE STORY: On a snowy London evening during the dreary winter of 1893, mysterious and unpleasant events are taking place. A young woman makes a dreadful decision. A wealthy gentleman disappears. An impoverished divinity scholar seeks shelter in a church and discovers an incapacitated young woman. In the morning she is gone.
The scholar, Gideon, vows to find and rescue the girl. Happening upon Inspector Cutter, he passes himself off as police officer and he and the Inspector head off to investigate a string of missing young women.
Meanwhile Octavia Hillingdon, a reporter, is trying to convince her editor to let her stray from the women's page and follow up on the story of the missing young women.
WHAT I THOUGHT: The story unfolds slowly alternately introducing characters. Connections
are not immediately obvious but make sense as the plot moves forward. A
complicated tale but easy enough to follow.
Sherlockian in
tone, the clever writing is amusing especially between 'Sergeant' Gideon
and Inspector Cutter, but somewhere in the second half, the story
seemed less of a piece and more of a mosaic of incidents. Still the mood
created and the descriptive writing is definitely worth reading.
BOTTOM LINE: RECOMMENDED for those who love historical fiction, ghost stories, literate mysteries.
DISCLAIMER: A copy of The House on Vesper Sands was provided to me by Tin House Books/Net Galley for an honest review.
Hardcover: 408 pages
Publisher: Tin House Books (January 12, 2021)
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