Gardner had the characters - including genteel female characters - use language which I doubt would have been used in the period in which the novel is set. The prose is clunky and the dialogue clunkier. However, I started getting irritated when the word appeared four times in the same paragraph.Īnother problem is the language. I have no problem with the idea of Captain Lacey suffering from depression and I take no issue with the condition being called melancholia. However, it had the opposite effect on me. The melancholia is his biggest personal difficulty and in theory it should have made him a sympathetic character. It seems to me that he has too many problems to make him an effective detective. He is yet another detective (using the word in its broadest sense) with "issues", including his gammy leg, his impecuniousness, his conflict with an old friend and comrade, his messed-up relationships with women and his "melancholia". The first in a crime fiction series set in Regency London, which features as its narrator and hero an injured Peninsular Wars veteran, Captain Gabriel Lacey, this novel seemed like it would be a good read.
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