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

The Long Call by Anne Cleeves

"He'd left the window down and now he could hear the surf on the beach and the sound naturalists names the long call, the cry which always sounded to him like an inarticulate howl of pain. These were the noises of home.
~from The Long Call by Anne Cleeves

I was intrigued to read The Long Call when reading the blurb about the main character: when Detective Matthew Venn left the community of the Brethren he lost his family, too. What a fascinating back story for a detective! Plus, I wanted to delve into something by Anne Cleeves since I have heard of the television series--Vera and Shetland--based on her other book series. The first book in a new series seemed the right place to begin.

The Long Call has a vivid sense of place--North Devon. "North Devon seems to attract the weirdos, don't you think?" one character accuses. Weirdos or not, the Barum Brethren may be dying out but the tight community still holds a lot of local power.

The novel opens with Matthew watching his father's funeral from afar, knowing he would not be welcome. He carries the bitterness of rejection, a remnant of hope of reconciliation. "Doubt was a cancer that grew unbidden," he knows.

Matthew went into police work because he sought the order and meaning lost when he left the Brethern. Isolated from the world while growing up, he was an outsider at university and dropped out. He is not a sociable man, he can be short and single-minded and stiff. But he is a good man.

Matthew is married to Jonathan, his opposite in many ways. Jonathan's dress is informal. He has a marvelous ability to connect to people. And he works for a community center, Woodyard, that includes a day center for special needs and offers classes to the public.

While at his father's funeral, Matthew was called when a dead body is found on the beach near his home. Simon Walden was new to the community and worked at the kitchen at Woodyard. Walden had a complicated life; he carried the burden of accidental homicide and had a history of alcoholism.

While Matthew and his team piece together the mystery of Walden's death, one of the day center women goes missing. The incidents may be related.

Matthew must reenter the Brethern community during his inquiry, which brings him face to face with the Brethern's spiritual leader.  Then another day center woman goes missing. What Matthew discovers is a community cover-up of a hideous abuse of power.

I enjoyed Cleeve's story-telling and felt Matthew was remarkably sympathetic and well-drawn. I was propelled to continue reading the last half of the novel. I would read the next book in the series. And will soon be checking out Cleeve's television series!

I received access to a free book through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Long Call
by Anne Cleeves
St. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books
Publication September 3, 2019
$26.99 hardcover
ISBN: 9781250204448

Ahab's Return: The Last Voyage by Jeffrey Ford

Ahab's back, looking for his wife and son.

Yes, that Ahab, the crazed captain who went down with the White Whale.

He miraculously survived and has finally made his way home. He turns up at the Gorgon's Mirror, a New York City tabloid newspaper, looking for Ishmael, the writer who killed Ahab off in his novelization of their adventures. Ishmael is gone but hack writer Harrow sees dollar signs behind Ahab's improbable story.

All Ahab wants now is to find his beautiful wife and teenage son.

Harrow gets his boss to fund the quest and he and Ahab go on an adventure into the heart of New York City's Five Points, encountering a drug cartel protected by juvenile addicts and the manticore, a mythological creature (pictured on the book cover). They are joined by Ahab's harpooner Madi, stylized as Daggoo by Ishmael, the staunch street urchin Marvis, and a patchwork-coat wearing female writer and opium-eater, Arabella.

Harrow is in over his head, plunged into a world of ghoulish murders perpetrated by Malbaster and attacked by his zombie-like creature Bartleby. Harrow admits that, in a gunfight, he is as "useless as Millard Fillmore." Luckily, he has the African Madi and the plucky women to protect him.

Ahab's Return by Jeffry Ford reminded me of Terry Pratchett's Dodger, a fun blend of fantasy and literary personages in a historical fantasy. And also Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next novels in which literary characters exist in an alternative world.

John Jacob Aster's opium shipping empire, a forgotten multi-racial and multi-cultural village torn down to make Central Park, the Know Nothing anti-immigrant nativist movement, all figure into the story.

The plot hinges on an interesting concept of fictioneers writing plotlines that become reality.

"I am a devotee of the works of Emerson and believe he's professing that the mind is a reailty engine--it creates reality or at least in some part it helps to create reality." Arabella in Ahab's Return

I enjoyed the novel as great escapist fun. I received a free book from the publisher through a LibraryThing giveaway.

Ahab's Return or, The Last Voyage
by Jeffrey Ford
William Morrow
ISBN: 9780062679000
ISBN 10: 0062679007

Jeffrey Ford is the author of the novels The Physiognomy, Memoranda, The Beyond, The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque, the Edgar Award–winning The Girl in the Glass, The Cosmology of the Wider World, The Shadow Year, and The Twilight Pariah, and his collections include The Fantasy Writer’s Assistant, The Empire of Ice Cream, The Drowned Life, Crackpot Palace, and A Natural History of Hell. He lives near Columbus, Ohio, and teaches writing at Ohio Wesleyan University.