The Yard by Alex Grecian
"Nobody noticed when Inspector Christian Little of Scotland Yard disappeared, and
nobody was looking for him when he was found."
This is a great opening line for the start of a historical thriller.
The Place: Victorian London. The date: 1889, Jack the Ripper's reign of terror is finally over. However the city of London is not resting easily, since the Ripper was never apprehended. Scotland Yard is scrambling to deal with the ever increasing murder rate in London, by establishing a "Murder Squad". Since they were unsuccessful in tracking down "Saucy Jack", you might say the Yard is also dealing with a public relations problem in addition to the growing crime rate. The people of London don't trust the police, and now someone is killing them.
The Place: Victorian London. The date: 1889, Jack the Ripper's reign of terror is finally over. However the city of London is not resting easily, since the Ripper was never apprehended. Scotland Yard is scrambling to deal with the ever increasing murder rate in London, by establishing a "Murder Squad". Since they were unsuccessful in tracking down "Saucy Jack", you might say the Yard is also dealing with a public relations problem in addition to the growing crime rate. The people of London don't trust the police, and now someone is killing them.
Grecian grabs your attention with that opening line, and does a fairly decent job of building suspense and introducing several interesting characters. This is Alex Grecian's first novel, and he loses some of the suspense or it begins to lag, when he starts each subsequent chapter bouncing the reader from one central character to another. This technique is necessary when you have several different strands to your plot, which need to be tied together at some point. As an example, at the end of one chapter, the wife of the main character, Inspector Walter Day, is found by her cleaning lady on the floor in her bedroom and is barely breathing. The cleaning lady runs outside to find someone who will summon a doctor to the house. The chapter ends with a description which leads you to believe she may have been assaulted by the murderer. The incident occurs about half way through the book, but the reader does not learn what has happened to Day's wife until the end of the novel.
However Grecian has done his research and many of the characters, Inspector Walter Day, Dr. Bernard Kingsley and Sir Edward Bradford are all based on real people in the annals of Scotland Yard. Dr. Kingsley is based on the Yard's first forensic pathologist and Sir Bradford is the real name of a Scotland Yard Commissioner of Police, who introduced sweeping changes and innovations to the Yard. Since I am a sucker for historical fiction, and I like the characters, I will be looking forward to Grecian's second novel with these characters, scheduled to come out in May 2013, entitled The Black Country.
However Grecian has done his research and many of the characters, Inspector Walter Day, Dr. Bernard Kingsley and Sir Edward Bradford are all based on real people in the annals of Scotland Yard. Dr. Kingsley is based on the Yard's first forensic pathologist and Sir Bradford is the real name of a Scotland Yard Commissioner of Police, who introduced sweeping changes and innovations to the Yard. Since I am a sucker for historical fiction, and I like the characters, I will be looking forward to Grecian's second novel with these characters, scheduled to come out in May 2013, entitled The Black Country.
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