Dark Dawn Over Steep House (Gower Street Detective Series #5)

by M. R. C. Kasasian

Overview

The latest mystery in the popular Victorian crime series featuring the ever-curmudgeonly private detective, Sidney Grice, and the charming March Middleton.

London, 1884.

125 Gower Street, the residence of Sidney Grice, London's foremost personal detective, and his ward March Middleton, is at peace.

Midnight discussions between the great man and his charge have led to a harmony unseen in these hallowed halls since the great frog disaster of 1878.

But harmony cannot last for long. A knock on the door brings mystery and murder once more to their home. A mystery that involves a Prussian Count, two damsels in distress, a Chinaman from Wales, a gangster looking for love, and the shadowy ruin of a once-loved family home, Steep House . . .

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781681775647
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	12/05/2017
Series:	Gower Street Detective Series , #5
Pages:	432
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.70(d)

About the Author

M. R. C. Kasasian is the author of The Mangle Street Murders. He lives with his wife in England.

Editorial Reviews

★ 10/02/2017
Kasasian’s fifth Victorian-era novel featuring “personal detective” Sidney Grice and Grice’s ward, March Middleton, shows him back at the top of his game after 2016’s disappointing The Secrets of Gaslight Lane. Geraldine Hockaday, the daughter of a high-ranking War Office official, was raped by a wealthy German nobleman, whom the police apprehended as he was dragging Geraldine down an alley in London’s East End. She reported her assault to the police and was prepared to testify in court against the attacker, but her father threatened to institutionalize her if she did not drop charges. This outrage prompts Geraldine’s brother to ask Grice to get justice for his sister. After a typically cryptic prologue, March, an astute investigator, notes that one of the many tangled threads essential to understanding Geraldine’s rape and her father’s actions relates to the murder of a respected retired surgeon, Anthony Lamb, three years earlier. Lamb had his skull bashed in with a funerary vase while visiting his family’s plot in a London cemetery. The twisted solution to the case ranks as one of the series’ most terrifying, and classic whodunit fans will appreciate Kasasian’s playing fair with them. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

"The series has achieved a significant following due in some part to the author’s brisk and fluid style, sharp, short chapters adequately paced, and due in greater part to the humorously arrogant antics of the detective at the center of the series, one Sidney Grice. If you’re a fan, you’ll love the dynamism in this one."

Bookgasm [praise for the Gower Street Detectives series]

"A rollicking blend of mystery, historical fiction, and coming-of-age novel. Stakes are high in this game of who dies next, which is one of the darker entries in Kasasian’s Gower Street series, but nonetheless compelling for its mood change."

Booklist (starred)

"Another excellent installment in the Gower Street Detective mystery series! A more intricate mystery than the first two in the series. The writing is just as flawless, though, packed full of delicious dialogue, voice-fueled narration, and many laugh-out-loud moments. My adoration of Sidney and March remains unshaken. Heartily enjoyed!"

Historical Novels Society [praise for the Gower Street Detectives series]

"The book is set in 1884 London with its fashionable squares, seedy slums and busy dockland vividly described. The pacing is rapid, with short chapters containing plenty of movement and action. A change from the elegant manners of most Victorian mystery novels and evokes masculine grittiness instead of the more usual feminine nuance."

Historical Novels Review

"Think Lemony Snicket meets Neil Gaiman for tea in Dracula’s castle."

Booklist (starred) [praise for the Gower Street Detectives series]

"A rollicking blend of mystery, historical fiction, and coming-of-age novel. Stakes are high in this game of who dies next, which is one of the darker entries in Kasasian’s Gower Street series, but nonetheless compelling for its mood change."

Booklist

"Think Lemony Snicket meets Neil Gaiman for tea in Dracula’s castle."

Booklist [praise for the Gower Street Detectives series]

2017-09-18
A Victorian detective with a unique style and the ward who doubles as his assistant track down a serial rapist.Sidney Grice—"the finest personal detective in the empire," as he announces himself—is a man of impossibly high standards, extraordinarily keen senses, finicky personal habits, a relentless devotion to the truth that outweighs all tact, a tendency to lose his glass eyeball at inopportune times, and little regard for women apart from Connie Middleton, the mother of his ward, March Middleton. March herself is ever the butt of Sidney's scorn, and he also wastes little patience on his latest client, Lucy Bocking, who was assaulted, beaten, and slashed. Sidney is scarcely more sympathetic to Lucy's friend Freda Wilde, hideously disfigured by fire and left without relatives when Steep House, her family home, burned down. Lucy's house next door escaped the fire, and she took in Freda as a companion—and a rather resentful one at times, because her wounds, unlike Lucy's, will never heal. The chief suspect in the assault, the German Kaiser's second cousin Prince Ulrich Schlangezahn, was implicated in an earlier rape. March tries in vain to entrap him in the same opium den where Lucy and Freda were attacked. A second attempt with some of her friends goes terribly wrong, and a related case of a missing person ends in a shocking mutilation. The only bright spot in March's life is Inspector George Pound, who finally proposes to her. Although she gladly accepts, she can't seem to find the chance to tell her guardian, for they're both too intent on capturing the man who has stalked numerous women in London and marked their foreheads with a sinister symbol. The outcome will leave more than a few readers feeling repulsed and betrayed.In their fifth adventure, Kasasian's mismatched detective team (The Secrets of Gaslights Lane, 2017, etc.) is in fine form for fans who like convoluted plots, lovingly detailed gore, and mean-spirited humor. The squeamish should approach with caution or not at all.

Kirkus Reviews