Scotland Yard in the Ripper's Wake

THE YARD
Alex Grecian
Penguin Audio Books
May 2012

After the failure of the Ripper investigation, the London Metropolitan Police, "The Yard" is in disarray and under fire from the public. The head of the twelve member Murder Squad has resigned in disgrace. Before leaving though he recommends that the Met hire a young constable from Devon, Walter Day. Walter's first case is the brutal murder of another member of the squad. The only case (among a welter of unsolved cases) that the murdered detective seemed to be working on was the disappearance of a young boy. While missing children in Victorian London are nothing unusual, this missing boy seems to be different, as he comes from a solid working class family that actually seems to care. Day teams up with Dr. Bernard Kingsley, the Yard's first forensic pathologist to find both the child and the killer.

While it had all the things I like in a historical novel- great period detail and well rounded, unforgettable characters- I think the episodic way that Grecian tells the story threw me off. I didn't really get very involved until the second part of the audio book and even then it jumped from periods of almost unbearable tension to periods of real tedium. On the whole though I liked it and will certainly read any future books in the series. Both Day and Kingsley are very attractive characters and the Victorian period with all it's grandeur and squalor has always been fascinating to me.

The Yard wasn't a mystery though, more a thriller, as we know the perpetrator right away. I liked the way that he tied up all the loose ends. The narrator was competent, but not great. It was much more a reading of the book and not a performance.

RATING- 3 Stars