Saturday 21 January 2017

Book Review - The House of Smoke by Sam Christer ('What's in a Name' Challenge #2)

'Sherlock Holmes' greatest nemesis unleashes Victorian London's deadliest assassin...'

I'm going to have to be honest here...until about 1/2 way through this book I wasn't sure I liked it. It's not that I found it heavy going (it's not), it's not that it doesn't immediately grab your attention (I mean, holy smokes, it begins by the aforementioned assassin honestly describing himself as 'the manservant of Death' and beginning the countdown to his execution!) it's just, well, something wasn't sitting right with me.

The author does a great job of evoking Newgate Gaol at the turn of the 19th into the 20th century. I could really sense the damp, cold, dark and stench of the gaol.

Simeon Lynch, the novel's central character, is also effectively portrayed and I think this is part of the problem I initially had with this book. By this I mean that I think I was having a hard time dredging up empathy for a self-confessed murderer and this was perhaps colouring my 'enjoyment' of the novel. Having said that, as the plot progresses we do indeed learn more about Simeon's background (the story is told in flashbacks - not necessarily in chronological order) and are able to build up a fuller picture of this 'manservant of Death' and are able to understand how he ended up on a path to become an assassin. We can, at times, sympathise with him and, at other times, be disgusted with him.

I do not want to give away too much of the plot here so will attempt to give you some of the basics. 
We start the novel knowing Simeon has a murder conviction and is to hang for it in 17 days time...but we do not know, until a good way into the story, who he is convicted of killing. We then, in flashbacks, follow Simeon's path from workhouse child, through his recruitment by Brogan Moriarty (brother of Sherlock Holmes' nemesis, James Moriarty) to his career as Moriarty's 'protector' and assassin. The flashbacks are interspersed with Simeon's narrative of his final days in Newgate Gaol, including a couple of visits by the great detective himself, Sherlock Holmes.

All in all I did enjoy this book (if enjoy is the right word when reading about a trained assassin!), in particular the last third of the book when things seemed to rev up speed towards the conclusion. Definitely worth a read if you like fiction with a Victorian-era crime theme.

I would probably award this book 3/5.



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