Instruments of Darkness

Instruments of Darkness by Imogen Robertson

Hardcover: 384 pages
Publisher: Pamela Dorman Books (February 17, 2011)
ISBN-10: 067002242X

From Publishers Weekly

Set in West Sussex in 1780, Robertson’s auspicious debut introduces the unlikely sleuthing team of anatomist Gabriel Crowther and independent-minded Harriet Westerman, mistress of Caveley Park. When Westerman happens on the stabbed body of a man, eventually identified as Carter Brook, on her land on the track to Thornleigh Hall, Crowther agrees to help her catch the murderer. The secretive Crowther, who’s maintained a reclusive existence since moving to the area, finds that Brook’s death may be connected to the search for a long-lost heir to the Thornleigh estate. Meanwhile in London, someone knifes to death Alexander Adams, who bears the same first name as the lost heir, in Adams’s music shop. While the killer’s identity will surprise few, the book works splendidly as a period thriller, with complicated leads and informative details that illuminate 18th-century England for modern readers. Dry humor leavens what otherwise would be a grim story line.

This sort of above review was what made me send for this book…

Although the review is correct, what it doesn’t say is that quite a bit of the book gets confusing as the author jumps from Sussex to London from person to person sometimes in the same chapter so that you continually get lost for moments at a time.  I thought this would get easier as I read but it stayed the same throughout the book.  So I can’t say that I was all that thrilled with the book.

Inside the confusion I will say there was a good mystery going on.. but the author just made it difficult to follow. Probably younger people with quicker minds could keep up easier than I could!  If so, then this would be a good read !

I certainly didn’t hate the book, I did struggle with it, but I did finish it!  I am just uncertain about the readability of it all.

But for now .. I have a number of other mysteries to deal with…so I shall move on to the next!!

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