Saturday 27 August 2016

RACK & RUIN by Carol Hedges

5 out of 5 stars

Victorian Murder Mystery

On Amazon UK  HERE
On Amazon.com HERE

On Goodreads HERE


Reviewed by me as a member of Rosie Amber's Review Team

I've read the other three of Carol Hedges' colourful, amusing and really rather brilliant Victorian murder mystery series, and this was every bit as good.  They're complete stand alones, by the way, no need to read them in order.

Rack & Ruin follows the stories of several wonderful characters: lovely, outwardly superficial, privileged Daisy Lawton, a girl looking forward to her first 'season'; Ms Hedges very cleverly avoided the trap of making her merely empty-headed, but gave her a heart of gold, too, especially when it came to her friend, poor Letitia, who is bound to a life of drudgery by her horrible father.  Then we have the would-be anarchists, Persiflage and Waxwing, Scottish detective Lachlan Greig, and various other upper middle class ne'er-do-wells, street rogues and those eager to make money by foul means, mostly the evil 'baby minders' around whom the story centres.

This book is not just a clever story with hilarious characterisation and descriptions so good you want to read them twice.  It's an insight into how difficult life really was for women in those days, only 150 years ago, and a view into Victorian London as clear as any film or TV drama series.  When I got to 84% I thought 'oh, no, I've only got a little bit left', and tried to make it last as long as possible.

I believe this might be the last in the series but I do hope not; as long as Carol Hedges keeps writing these books I'll keep reading them as soon as they're available, and you should, too!

Death & Dominion is reviewed HERE, with links to reviews of Honour & Obey and Diamonds & Dust.  All include Amazon buy links.



6 comments:

  1. Thank you ~ very kind! There will be a 5th book..I m writing it!

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  2. Just about to start reading it. Haven’t had chance to read for the last week, life took over ;-) (Glad to know there’ll be a 5th book!)

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  3. There was never going to be one ~ my erstwhile agent dismissed D & D as a load of rubbish! Strange how things turn out...

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  4. This sounds like a real winner, Terry. It will go on my TBR list, which isn't too bad right now.

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  5. Great review! I can't wait to read this :)

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  6. Thank you once again for re-posting this!

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