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The Alchemy Of Murder (2010)

by Carol McCleary(Favorite Author)

3.35 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

076532203X (ISBN13: 9780765322036)

languge

English

genre

Mystery & Thriller

publisher

Forge

series

Nellie Bly

review 1: Enjoyable steampunk romp through 1889 Paris with Nellie Bly, Jules Verne, Oscar Wilde, and Louis Pasteur. Intrepid investigative reporter Nellie Bly has followed "the slasher" from New York to London, to Paris in an effort to bring him to justice and, of course, write an exclusive piece for Mr. Pulitzer's New York World newspaper. In a brief flashback, we learn that Nellie came close to being murdered by an earlier incarnation of Jack the Ripper at the infamous Blackwell's Island insane asylum for women where she was doing some investigative research. A few years later in Paris, she tricks Jules Verne into helping her track down the criminal. They get embroiled in the Anarchist underground of Montmartre and an on-going scientific investigation into the Black Fever/influenz... morea epidemic sweeping through the city. (A better editor might have rid the novel of the occasional awkward phrasing that pops up, but you can't have everything.)
review 2: This book was after all only a cozy mystery, albeit an almost 500 page one. It had pretensions of being an historical mystery of some heft, but it fell quite short. It engaged me enough as it progressed that I actually finished it, but I won't read on into the series. It felt trite and inconsequential, while at the same time it was peopled with such interesting historical figures. The protagonist is a fictionalized Nellie Bly, who was, in fact, one of the first investigative reporters and feminists of the late 19th century. She actually reported and wrote for Joseph Pulitzer, owner of the New York World, and crossed paths in Paris during the 1889 World's Fair while chasing a murderer and story with Louis Pasteur, Oscar Wilde and Jules Verne (and romatically, at that!). less

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