Gods of Gotham

The Gods of Gotham
Lyndsay Faye
2012

I reported on Faye's Sherlock mystery Dust and Shadow in a recent post and found it very fine, if Sherlock did seem a bit too high strung. And Sherlock is hot!

I just finished her more recent Gods of Gotham and I found it excellent. Fans of the Alienist and Gangs of New York will find it familiar territory. Descriptive and enchanting but also horrifying as Irish children working as prostitutes are apparently being murdered and cut apart. It's set during a time when Irish immigrants flood into the city in the wake of the potato famine, threatening "Americans," with their strange religion and different ways.

Tim Wilde, a bartender and burn victim, takes up the copper star of the new police force. Gods is a great read if you like thick atmosphere and historical settings and language, such as its use of the "flash" thieves cant or slang, and the dark visions of the city in the 19th century. Having read a little of that history and about the archaeology of the 19th century Five Points slum, I know Ms. Faye's research is meticulous and rich. She also brings to life a fascinating cast of characters, both real and fictional, from the real police chief Mattson to the fictional Wilde brothers, Mercy Underhill, Bird Daly, Mrs. Boehm, the child newsboys and child prostitutes, and the wild assortment of "copper stars" the early NYPD of 1845. This is very good stuff.

More new reads...More Sherlock...Deb Crombie...Amelia Peabody...

Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson by Lyndsay Faye (2009) No Mark Upon Her by Deborah Crombie (2012)

Gallows View by Peter Robinson (1990)

Amelia Peabody's Egypt: A compendium by Elizabeth Peters, Kristen Whitbread and Dennis Forbes (2003)

Lyndsay Faye's new and highly acclaimed novel The Gods of Gotham is set in 1840's New York during the early days of the police force in that city. A future read but I wanted to read her 1st novel, Dust and Shadow,  more Sherlockiana (see some of my recent blogs). I read her novel with a map of London and a "Ripperology" website at my side. Her novel is well-researched and enjoyable. It is tightly plotted but as in all of the recent Sherlockiana novels, Downey/Law movies, and the BBC TV series (2nd series airing in the US in May), they are interested in giving Sherlock a lot of emotions, sometimes a wife or girlfriend, and perhaps more physicality than is canonical. Now I need to re-read the originals to see what is or is not canon.

I was looking forward to Deb Crombie's new novel and it did not disappoint. There is a ripping mystery involving rowing, posh Henley rowing clubs, and the power hierarchy and sexism at the Met (London Police). Detectives (and new spouses) Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James must combine work and family life as they try to make a good life for themselves and their children while solving dastardly, complex crimes (try that, Ann Romney!) and navigating the tricky waters of the Yard politics. 

In my last blog, I discussed Peter Robinson's latest Before the Poison. I wanted to read his Inspector Banks series, starting with the first, Gallows View. Since the first, he's written a lot of this series, 20 books or so. In the first, Banks and his family have just moved to small town in Yorkshire, where a peeping Tom, angry local feminists, a gorgeous psychologist, and a nasty sociopathic youth gang lead to all kinds of crime - including murder. The small town is full of interesting characters - like an updated Miss Marple would find in council flats and posh new estates. It's good stuff.

Last, Amelia Peabody's Egypt is a fun companion to Elizabeth Peters' archaeological mysteries set in 1880's to 1920's Egypt. It is great fun reading about the actual investigators like Flinders Petrie and Howard Carter and puts some more meat on the bones of Peters' backstories of Egyptology, fashion, suffrage, and espionage.