Book Review - The Cater Street Hangman
Jul. 24th, 2014 08:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
redfiona99I actually read this because GoodReads recommended it. I've read it once before, before the TV adaptation so pre-1998, and I didn't think much of it. I couldn't remember why I hadn't liked it so I thought it would only be fair if I gave it another go.
The problem is three-fold:
1 - I don't believe in the characters. These are Victorian ladies, living in a house where the mother refers to her mother-in-law as Grandmama. I don't think that the daughters of the house would think of their mother by her given name, not even in their own thoughts. I know why the author has them do it, to make it clearer who is talking about who, but it distorts the feel of the characters.
2 - The resolution of the plot came out of nowhere. I can see what they were going for, but I've never been a fan of twist murderers.
3 - I don't like Inspector Pitt. I can see what the author was aiming for, brave working class man who has fought his way up to Inspector rank, opening the eyes of privileged woman to the poverty all around her, making her a better person.
It would probably work if Inspector Pitt wasn't such a sermonising, sanctimonious know it all. (Eoin McCarthy played him in the TV version and even he couldn't make him bearable, which I would have though impossible.) I'm convinced that Charlotte has swapped one pompous prat (her father) for another one.
Part of the problem may have been that the only character I liked was the youngest sister.
It's not actually a bad book, it's solidly written and does a reasonably good job of scene-setting, I just didn't enjoy it.
Half Moon Street by Anne Perry (90.3%)
Bedford Square by Anne Perry (89.8%)
Traitors Gate by Anne Perry (89.2%)
Seven Dials by Anne Perry (89%)
Some Danger Involved by Will Thomas (46.6%)
A Beautiful Blue Death by Charles Finch (45.8%)
A Poisoned Season by Tasha Alexander (40.7%)
Death at Bishop's Keep by Robin Paige (39.9%)
Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn (37.8%)
The Hellfire Conspiracy by Will Thomas (37.8%)
I've not read any of those but I might keep an eye out.
Diary by Chuck Palahniuk (expected 24.4, found 0)
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami (expected 24.2, found 0)
Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture by Douglas Coupland (expected 21.9, found 0)
Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller (expected 20.6, found 0)
Beyond Good & Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche (expected 20.2, found 0)
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera (expected 18.7, found 0)
The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker (expected 17.5, found 0)
The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea (expected 17.2, found 0)
Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison by Michel Foucault (expected 16.5, found 0)
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs* by Chuck Klosterman (expected 15.8, found 0)
I've not read any of these, but several of them aren't books I'd automatically avoid.
The problem is three-fold:
1 - I don't believe in the characters. These are Victorian ladies, living in a house where the mother refers to her mother-in-law as Grandmama. I don't think that the daughters of the house would think of their mother by her given name, not even in their own thoughts. I know why the author has them do it, to make it clearer who is talking about who, but it distorts the feel of the characters.
2 - The resolution of the plot came out of nowhere. I can see what they were going for, but I've never been a fan of twist murderers.
3 - I don't like Inspector Pitt. I can see what the author was aiming for, brave working class man who has fought his way up to Inspector rank, opening the eyes of privileged woman to the poverty all around her, making her a better person.
It would probably work if Inspector Pitt wasn't such a sermonising, sanctimonious know it all. (Eoin McCarthy played him in the TV version and even he couldn't make him bearable, which I would have though impossible.) I'm convinced that Charlotte has swapped one pompous prat (her father) for another one.
Part of the problem may have been that the only character I liked was the youngest sister.
It's not actually a bad book, it's solidly written and does a reasonably good job of scene-setting, I just didn't enjoy it.
Half Moon Street by Anne Perry (90.3%)
Bedford Square by Anne Perry (89.8%)
Traitors Gate by Anne Perry (89.2%)
Seven Dials by Anne Perry (89%)
Some Danger Involved by Will Thomas (46.6%)
A Beautiful Blue Death by Charles Finch (45.8%)
A Poisoned Season by Tasha Alexander (40.7%)
Death at Bishop's Keep by Robin Paige (39.9%)
Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn (37.8%)
The Hellfire Conspiracy by Will Thomas (37.8%)
I've not read any of those but I might keep an eye out.
Diary by Chuck Palahniuk (expected 24.4, found 0)
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami (expected 24.2, found 0)
Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture by Douglas Coupland (expected 21.9, found 0)
Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller (expected 20.6, found 0)
Beyond Good & Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche (expected 20.2, found 0)
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera (expected 18.7, found 0)
The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker (expected 17.5, found 0)
The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea (expected 17.2, found 0)
Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison by Michel Foucault (expected 16.5, found 0)
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs* by Chuck Klosterman (expected 15.8, found 0)
I've not read any of these, but several of them aren't books I'd automatically avoid.
