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.





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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.