132,568
edits
Changes
From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to searchCrossbones Yard (Alice Quentin 1) by Kate Rhodes (view source)
Revision as of 15:22, 26 March 2017
, 15:22, 26 March 2017no edit summary
In the event there were benefits both ways: I was walking the plot and it worked brilliantly. Kate Rhodes obviously knows and loves the area and she brings it to life with an elegant mixture of the tourist world around the Tower of London (I was slightly surprised to hear someone speaking English today) and the world of the people who live here day in, day out. I loved Quentin's comments about the extortionate price of going into the Tower of London, but her runs in the city and south of the Thames tempted me to walk further afield than I'd originally thought to do.
It's not my city break you want to know about though, is it? Well, it's a gripping plot: I was absolutely convinced that I had the name of the murderer: I'd even convinced myself that I didn't mind because the writing was so good, but I was completely wrong. Once I had the name it was absolutely obvious and I couldn't understand why I hadn't spotted it before: it's a book to listen to again fairly soon, just for the pleasure of seeing how Rhodes did it. The characters were compelling too: I loved the idea of a psychologist having a brother with severe mental health issues: somehow it pointed up how cruel mental illness can be. The cast list reflect reflects the cosmopolitan nature of London, too. Quentin's boss is a Sikh and despite being commitment phobic (she didn't have the best examples in her childhood) she's sexually attracted to a detective sargeant of Spannish descent. London's a melting pot and ''Crossbones Yard'' reflects it.
I loved the book and listened right through it far too quickly. In fact it was so good that I immediately bought the next book in the series.
