DNF

Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder

I DNFed this book at 74%. I even threw a bit of a temper tantrum as I consigned the ebook to that most miserable of collections on my Kindle: Not Interesting. The fuel for my frustration? I wanted to love this book. The setup promised a steampunk version of Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series. In a series of tunnels beneath London, the Inquirers ply their trade: private investigation. A series of pneumatic tubes link hidden postboxes to the Inquirers’ mailroom. People send pleas, secrets, and requests to the mailroom, where they are filed and, if seen as worthy, investigated. This all takes place in the early chapters and at this point in the book, I was squeeing with delight! But alas, the rest did not deliver on its potential.

Marion Lane, our eponymous heroine, is a first year apprentice in the agency. She’s training to be an Inquirer with her mentor, Frank. This all goes to hell in a handbasket when one night, the mailroom attendant is murdered and suspicion falls on Frank’s shoulders. Marion shoves aside her apprenticeship to prove Frank’s innocence.

My gripes with this novel can be broken into two parts:

Part the first: Marion. Everything is always just on the tip of her tongue, on the edge of her mind and she can’t quite reach it. This becomes INFURIATING as Marion is always a step behind. She feels lost and a bit clueless which makes her (rare) moments of insight rather unbelievable as she has not demonstrated that she is a capable investigator.

Part the second: The plotting is loose and inconsistent, and as a result, infuriating. I want a murder mustery to move with a sense of urgency and suspense, each clue taking me ever higher on the suspense ladder until the dramatic climax. In this novel, the scenes don’t create a tense linear climb so much as a tangled flat ball of yarn. There is no consistent build-up of suspense, and some of the plot elements themselves were baffling. For example, there is a giant Circus Ball thrown shortly after the mailroom attendant’s death. It seems like a weird time for a massive party, and is written to seem deeply suspicious, but none of the characters – all of whom are private investigators! – seem to be too worried about the timing. They just go along with this big party and ask no questions. Huh?!

My demands are simple in a murder mystery: I want the heroine to be smarter than me. I want to be surprised and even a little scared as the mystery unfolds. There are parts of this story that show tremendous creativity (The baddie’s weapon! The inquirers’ setup!) and while the premise is original and held great promise, it was difficult to stay excited about the positive parts when the whole story was ultimately let down by an unconvincing heroine and a draughty plot.

– Lara

The letter was short. A name, a time, a place.

Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder plunges readers into the heart of London, to the secret tunnels that exist far beneath the city streets. There, a mysterious group of detectives recruited for Miss Brickett’s Investigations & Inquiries use their cunning and gadgets to solve crimes that have stumped Scotland Yard.

Late one night in April 1958, a filing assistant for Miss Brickett’s named Michelle White receives a letter warning her that a heinous act is about to occur. She goes to investigate but finds the room empty. At the stroke of midnight, she is murdered by a killer she can’t see—her death the only sign she wasn’t alone. It becomes chillingly clear that the person responsible must also work for Miss Brickett’s, making everyone a suspect.

Almost unwillingly, Marion Lane, a first-year Inquirer-in-training, finds herself being drawn ever deeper into the investigation. When her friend and mentor is framed for the crime, to clear his name she must sort through the hidden alliances at Miss Brickett’s and secrets dating back to WWII. Masterful, clever and deliciously suspenseful, Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder is a fresh take on the Agatha Christie—style locked-room mystery with an exciting new heroine detective at the helm.