Things in Jars by Jess Kidd

If Charles Dickens and Neil Gaiman and Conan Doyle had devised a Victorian Era Gothic mystery with a female detective partial to 'medicinal' tobacco who is hired to find a kidnapped girl who is perhaps not quite human, aided by a dead man and former circus freak, it would not be outdone by Jess Kidd's Things in Jars.

The coal smoke and fog of London, complete with its olfactory smorgasbord of industry and market, the filthy Thames and its dung-filled streets, the miasma blamed for cholera and other deadly diseases is vividly described. 

The novel is Victorian in writing style, with Dickensian descriptions and sensational penny dreadful worthy murderous villains. It is populated with Resurrectionists, mudlarks, people with false identities, and avid collectors of curiosities--things in jars.

Sir Edmund has an extensive collection of aquatic life--aberrations--things in jars, including the Winter Mermaid, the Irish merrow specimen that went missing long ago. The fishy merrow could take on female human form, beautiful but dangerous killers. Sir Edmund's reclusive, 'singular daughter' has disappeared, along with her nurse and the doctor. Sir Edmund won't share details, but he is desperate to find Christabel.

Here is time held in suspension. Yesterday picked. Eternity in a jar. ~from Things in Jars by Jess Kidd

Sir Edmund has called detective Bridie Devine to find the missing girl.

Bridie's early childhood was spent with a resurrectionist--once a man of science before ruined by drink and gambling--who taught her how to determine how long a body had been dead. Then a gentleman doctor took her from the streets to groom as his assistant. Now, she helps the police, "working out how people died." She failed to find her last kidnapped child case, and perhaps that failure was why she was chosen for this case.

Bridie is a wonderful character. Like Sherlock Holmes, she dons disguises, she is identified by her choice of hat, and smokes a pipe. She is also quite modern, railing against societal restraints on women, the 'market price' of their value. Middle age is creeping up--is it too late for a lover? Ruby Doyle's ghost has been following her, claiming they had a history; there is an affection between them. Who was he?

Kidd captures a time when Darwin's theory is breaking news and science and pseudoscience is all the rage. I love the novels and era that inspired this novel, and I love this novel, too.

I was given access to a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

Things in Jars
by Jess Kidd
Atria Books
Pub Date 04 Feb 2020
ISBN 9781982121280
PRICE $27.00 /$36.00 (CAD) hardcover