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ppcfransen 's review for:
Felicity Carrol and the Murderous Menace
by Patricia Marcantonio
I had to start this book over. The first time I started reading it, I had to put it aside after about 25 pages because Felicity’s many good deeds for her servants just annoyed me too much. And how did she get into university? Didn’t she need the permission of her disapproving father?
Second time round - I just glossed over those points.
Felicity Carrol is a young woman of independent means. All her close relatives have died and she is now the owner of a rather successful company. A company she doesn’t seem to run, though she does make efforts to improve the work circumstances for the employees. By introducing education and machines. When she’s not doing that she likes to solve crimes she reads about in the newspapers.
The novel opens with Felicity tracking down a female serial killer. She read all about this woman (including her name) in a newspaper, so how it is possible that the police were unable to find this killer is a little beyond me.
Then Felicity is called to the sick bed of her friend Inspector Jackson Davies. He got sick because he did not take care of himself in his hunt for Jack the Ripper. Jackson shows Felicity an article that suggests the Whitechapel murders have stopped because the murderer relocated to the USA. Felicity decides to follow in his track.
How I wish the author had done some better research.
Though I can to a degree overlook how intimate Felicity and Jackson are towards each other (even if Victorian British were even more formal to a fault than today’s Brits), I can’t comprehend how much money Felicity is spending on buying information. 1890’s dollar has more than 28 times the purchasing power of today’s dollar. In other words, if you spend $20 in 1890 that would be like spending $575 today. Who even carries that much money around in their purse?
The subject matter - tracking down Jack the Ripper - makes this story grittier than is usual for the cozy genre. I think I prefer the more lighthearted cozies, but perhaps that is due too to liking other cozy heroines better. I didn’t start to get an appreciation for this story until the final confrontation with the murderer. That’s a bit late.
I received a reader copy through NetGalley.
Second time round - I just glossed over those points.
Felicity Carrol is a young woman of independent means. All her close relatives have died and she is now the owner of a rather successful company. A company she doesn’t seem to run, though she does make efforts to improve the work circumstances for the employees. By introducing education and machines. When she’s not doing that she likes to solve crimes she reads about in the newspapers.
The novel opens with Felicity tracking down a female serial killer. She read all about this woman (including her name) in a newspaper, so how it is possible that the police were unable to find this killer is a little beyond me.
Then Felicity is called to the sick bed of her friend Inspector Jackson Davies. He got sick because he did not take care of himself in his hunt for Jack the Ripper. Jackson shows Felicity an article that suggests the Whitechapel murders have stopped because the murderer relocated to the USA. Felicity decides to follow in his track.
How I wish the author had done some better research.
Though I can to a degree overlook how intimate Felicity and Jackson are towards each other (even if Victorian British were even more formal to a fault than today’s Brits), I can’t comprehend how much money Felicity is spending on buying information. 1890’s dollar has more than 28 times the purchasing power of today’s dollar. In other words, if you spend $20 in 1890 that would be like spending $575 today. Who even carries that much money around in their purse?
The subject matter - tracking down Jack the Ripper - makes this story grittier than is usual for the cozy genre. I think I prefer the more lighthearted cozies, but perhaps that is due too to liking other cozy heroines better. I didn’t start to get an appreciation for this story until the final confrontation with the murderer. That’s a bit late.
I received a reader copy through NetGalley.