Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn

[lightreads]

Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I don’t even fuckin’ – this job. I knew it would take all my time and energy and sleep and endurance. I didn’t know it would also take all of my brain, so there is no more brain for books, and I end up almost kinda liking things like this.



This is a “fluffy” but “dark” mystery-romance set in the “Victorian Era.” The hero is a multilingual sleuth with shady connections, a drug habit, and a violin – a Sherlock Holmes knockoff, not to put too fine a point on it.



Very knocked. Very off.



The heroine is a mess of characterization – she’s supposed to be a widow emerging from sedate respectability into adventures and self-fulfillment, but she’s mostly just inconsistent and wincingly stupid. She has wildly anachronistic ideas of gender, class, sexuality, and race (she’s eccentric, you see!), but then turns around and, awkward, blames a rape victim for being victimized. Which I guess just makes her a twenty-first century transplant, and probably an authorial mirror to boot.



But man. Great commute read.



Fuckin’ job.





View all my reviews

Comments

[readerjane]

So if you're enjoying stuff this thin, does that mean you're coming back to Plum? *snerk*

[lightreads]

Oh, hey, it's Plum season isn't it? I'd totally forgotten.

[livingbyfiction.livejournal.com]

If it's any consolation, you get your bandwidth back after you leave the job. I have wings now or something. *flapstretch* Also, you get to keep the bank account and credibility long after you leave, yay.

There's always Patricia C. Wrede or Anne of Green Gables, for easy commute reads that don't cause victim-blaming asides. Also, Lonesome Dove is a remarkably awesome book despite the miniseries. Then you can cross every street thinking "better cross this river while the crossin's good!"