Half Killed

Review of Half Killed by Quenby Olson

Overview from www.barnesandnoble.com: Dorothea Hawes has no wish to renew contact with what lies beyond the veil. After an attempt to take her own life, she has retired into seclusion, but as the wounds on her body heal, she is drawn back into a world she wants nothing more than to avoid.

She is sought out by Julian Chissick, a former man of God who wants her help in discovering who is behind the gruesome murder of a young woman. But the manner of death is all too familiar to Dorothea, and she begins to fear that something even more terrible is about to unleash itself on London. And so Dorothea risks her life and her sanity in order to save people who are oblivious to the threat that hovers over them. It is a task that forces her into a confrontation with her own lurid past, and tests her ability to shape events frighteningly beyond her control.

My Review:

More apologies from me as I have to ask pardon for making you wait so long for this latest review. I think I might have to amend my review schedule to one review every other week instead of every week. This, as I mentioned before, is due to me going back to school. I will publish more often when I can but I apologize in advance for the times when it is not possible.

This week’s story was sent to me by a fellow author on Facebook months ago and I am just now getting around to reviewing it. I also have another story from a fellow Facebook member whose book I will be reviewing next time which just shows how far behind I am on keeping my promises.

The story centers on a young London woman whose name is Thea Hawes. Thea has a troubled past but not in the way that most of us do, she is troubled by the spirits of the dead rather than the confrontations with the living. Specifically those of her parents who were mysterious killed years ago.

One day she receives a visit from a Mr.Chissick who claims to know her yet she knows that she has never met him before. Soon enough she finds out the purpose for his visit and doesn’t like it one bit. Chissick brings her to the body of murder girl who has an unusual burn wound across her throat, the apparent cause of death. But who or what could have done this? This is what she must find out. And the most disturbing thing of all is that it is exactly the same way her parents were found on the night they died.

The story itself gets points for uniqueness. I can’t say that I have ever read anything quite like it before. I kept wanted to turn the page. First, I was trying to figure out the time period. I knew it was historical but I couldn’t tell in the beginning if it was the 1800’s or the early 1900’s. It was only the reference to the queen that gave me any idea at all. That and the fact that there were no cars mentioned.

Later, I was drawn in further by this unusual; I guess you could call it a supernatural mystery. It becomes apparent from the beginning that this is no ordinary crime and so the perpetrator must not be any ordinary person either.

The characters were also well-done and interesting. You can feel for both Thea and her Mr. Chissick and, to a lesser extent, some of the less minor characters.

The downsides for me were the Prologue and the description. The Prologue is set in second person and this bothered me. I didn’t want to read an entire story in second person and I didn’t know whether or not it would continue on that way. I kept thinking that if the author did it intending for the reader to identify with Thea, she would have done better to use first person, and beginning in the first chapter, that is exactly what she did.

Then there was the description. Don’t get me wrong it was beautiful. It just seemed like there was too much of it. I felt like a lot of it didn’t really need to be there, especially in the beginning.

I did like it in the end. I liked it quite a lot though I don’t think I would go so far as to say that I loved it. Still it was a great story without a lot of objectionable material so that counted for a lot and it got me through it. I hope you agree.

Desecration

Review of Desecration by J. F. Penn 

Overview from www.barnesandnoble.com: Death isn't always the end.

LONDON. When the body of a young heiress is found within the Royal College of Surgeons, Detective Sergeant Jamie Brooke is assigned to the case. An antique ivory figurine found beside the body is the only lead and she enlists Blake Daniel, a reluctant clairvoyant, to help her discover the message it holds.

When personal tragedy strikes, Jamie finds her own life entwining with the morbid fascinations of the anatomists, and she must race against time to stop them claiming another victim.

As Jamie and Blake delve into a macabre world of grave robbery, body modification, and the genetic engineering of monsters, they must fight to keep their sanity, and their lives.

My Review:

I return to another book by J. F. Penn with the novel, Desecration, which by the way is a very appropriate title considering some of the things that happen in this book.

Our main character is a young woman named Jamie who is also a police officer. But we don’t begin with Jamie the police officer. Instead we first glimpse the Jamie who is the mother of a dying child. This is a side of her life that she keeps secret from most of her colleagues.

She the children’s hospice for work, hoping to leave the disturbing images of her daughter dying behind. When she gets her next case though, all she gets is even more death, and we are not just talking about the murder victim, Jenna.

Digging deeper into the murder victim’s investigations she finds out about the underside of a morbid death worship type culture. One suspect, the love interest of Jenna’s, makes a living by posing dead bodies in provocative positions and then selling them to the highest bidder.

Others, Jenna’s parents, use the dead bodies for the advancement of science. At least that is what they claim but after seeing the freakish specimen’s in jars at a local museum Jamie begins to wonder how any of this can be legal.

For me it seemed to be more of a cautionary tale about how even art and science can go too far in their effort for pleasure and the greater good. This is what could happen when someone makes art or even science their god. The ends can justify the means in the eyes of such people and even make them forget their own humanity.

I will warn you. This story is macabre and downright creepy but there are some scary possibilities. I hope I don’t live to see this reality but it is something to think about, and possibly give you nightmares. Also, like the last novel I reviewed by Penn, the language is sometimes a bit strong.

It is a good book to read if you like mystery and thriller novels that make you think, and if you can stomach the dark aspects of it. In fact, you might not want to read this when you are eating. It is up to you.

I am not really sure whether I want to recommend this one or not. Just remember, you have been warned.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

       


Review of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson




Overview from www.bn.com: "This Master Hyde, if he were studied,' thought he, 'must have secrets of his own; black secrets, by the look of him; secrets compared to which poor Jekyll's worst would be like sunshine.'" —The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

When Edward Hyde tramples an innocent girl, two bystanders catch the fellow and force him to pay reparations to the girl's family. A respected lawyer, Utterson, hears this story and begins to unravel the seemingly manic behavior of his best friend, Dr. Henry Jekyll, and his connection with Hyde. Utterson probes into both Jekyll and his unlikely protégé, increasingly unnerved at each new revelation. In a forerunner of psychological dramas to come, Robert Louis Stevenson uses Hyde to show that we are both repulsed and attracted to the darker side of life, particularly when we can experience it in anonymity.

My Review:

It is strange to think that though I knew the story of Jekyll and Hyde, or thought I knew it anyway, I had never read the book by Robert Louis Stevenson. In fact, until I saw this as a Free Friday book by Barnes & Noble, I couldn’t even have told you who had written it though I suspected it was Stevenson. So maybe I did know, somewhere in the back of my mind.

I have always had questions about this story. For example, what ingredients did Dr. Jekyll use to turn himself into Mr. Hyde? Why did he want turn himself into Hyde in the first place? How did he create the alternate name and personality? And finally what kind of man goes to this extreme in the first place?

These were the questions that I had in mind and though I wanted to enjoy the ride like I usually do with novels, I also kept the questions at the back of mind my mind throughout. But would the author answer them to my satisfaction? The answer turned out to be both yes and no.

I understood that the doctor created Hyde to indulge in his darker side and smaller but dark nature that lurked inside of him, hence Mr. Hyde’s small stature. What I didn’t get was why a respected doctor like Jekyll, known for his good nature, felt the end to indulge the dark side at all. Perhaps the answer is that he is not as good as his friends supposed him to be or that in the Victorian Era indulging any dark impulses could get a person into a heap of trouble. But for me that just wasn’t a good enough reason. We are supposed to try to weed this stuff out, not encourage it, if it was done under a different name. It made me like Jekyll less.

As to the ingredients in the potion, some of them were listed though in the end it turns out to be not what we expect or even what Jekyll expects. As they become harder and harder to find, Jekyll risks being stuck in Hyde’s body and facing death at the gallows for one of Hyde’s foul deeds when can’t make his potion anymore.

The alternate name and personality were easy to create owing to the resources at Dr. Jekyll’s disposal.

However I had a hard time understanding why Dr. Jekyll felt the need to do this in the first place as I said earlier, even after I read his explanation at the end. It just rang hollow. This also limited my sympathy for the man. Unlike the experiments of Dr. Frankenstein, Jekyll’s experiment seemed to have no intrinsic value whatsoever.

So while I still find the story interesting, the main character was not likable for me, either as Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde.
Contains: some violence