The Counterfeit Detective by Simpson Grears - #bookreview #blogtour

 

You want to make your life a book? Consider. Books are as impermanent as people. Both are eaten by worms. Bindings loosen and break. Paper becomes yellow and brittle. Even vellum dries and cracks. Both lives and books are easily lost and forgotten. Sanctuary there is none. Books disappear into libraries and libraries sometimes burn...

***

An American Professor discovers the diaries of John Ledbury, known as the counterfeit detective, a minor poet who, in Victorian London, is employed to reply to the mail that come addressed to Sherlock Holmes at 221b Baker Street.

Through the diaries he unearths a series of baffling unsolved murders. He travels through England and Scotland but he realizes that, in order to solve the mystery, he has to travel further, back through time itself.

***

I was initially attracted to this book when it was offered to me on a blog tour as it claims to have elements of Sherlock Holmes mixed with Jack the Ripper. Quite a combination!

It does indeed have those things but it also has much more to recommend it. There is a great dual timeline which I love in a book. It is set partly in 1900 and 1973 and the author moves the story between those two periods with ease.

It had an appealing plot which begins in the latter time period when an American University Professor discovers some diaries from the earlier time. The story then moves backwards and forwards as he investigates the entries, and there are some interesting discoveries along the way.

What I had been unprepared for in this book is that some of these diary entries contain examples of sadistic pornography. This was not to my personal reading taste, and it is as well to be forewarned before you read the book.

It has an interesting conclusion when the author brings both the timelines together.

Readers who enjoy historical fiction mixed with a bit of erotica will enjoy this book.

ISBN: 978 1739596088

Publisher:  Rymour Books

Formats: Paperback

No. of Pages:  332

 

About the Author:

SIMPSON GREARS is the crime-writing name of the writer Ian Simpson Grears Spring. His collection of short stories, The Foot of the Walk Murders, was longlisted for a prestigious Dagger award for short story by the Crime Writers Association in 2021. His first detective novel, The Counterfeit Detective, is an epic Gothic literary crime thriller set mostly in Victorian London but also in 1970s England, Scotland and the United States.

(book courtesy of Love Book Tours)

(author media courtesy of https://thecwa.co.uk/find-an-author/grears-simpson/)

(all opinions are my own)