By Gaslight - Steven Price

Written by Steven Price
Read by John Lee
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Release date: October 10, 2016
Duration: 23:40:54

By Gaslight is a deeply atmospheric, haunting novel about the unending quest that has shaped a man’s life.

Price’s elegantly written, vividly evoked second novel (after Into That Darkness) marries historical suspense with literary sophistication. In 1885 London, a woman’s dismembered body is identified as that of Charlotte Reckitt, a longtime grifter for whom two very different men are searching.

William Pinkerton is already famous, the son of the most notorious detective of all time, when he descends into the underworld of Victorian London in pursuit of a new lead on the fabled con Edward Shade. William’s father died without ever finding Shade, but William is determined to drag the thief out of the shadows.

Adam Foole is a gentleman without a past, haunted by a love affair ten years gone. When he receives a letter from his lost beloved, Charlotte Reckitt, he returns to London to find her. What he learns of her fate, and its connection to the man known as Shade, will force him to confront a grief he thought long-buried.

A fog-enshrouded hunt through sewers, opium dens, drawing rooms, and séance halls ensues, creating the most unlikely of bonds: between Pinkerton, the great detective, and Foole, the one man who may hold the key to finding Edward Shade.

“… As the two circle each other, each probes his own past and both realize they are more similar, and more closely connected, than they believed. With its intricate cat-and-mouse game, array of idiosyncratic characters, and brooding atmosphere, By Gaslight has much to please fans of both classic suspense and Victorian fiction. Yet Price’s novel is entirely contemporary, and assuredly his own: a sweeping tale of hunter and hunted in which the most-dangerous pursuer is always the human heart. “ Publishers Weekly

Sometimes a narrator can make a good book even better, while other times he or she can salvage a not-so-good book. John Lee does both here. The story, set in the nineteenth century, shifts farther back in time occasionally as two men–a detective and a con man–seek the whereabouts of a young woman. Each has a different motive for finding her. Lee handles every voice with aplomb, including various English accents. Characters include a wise black woman, streetwise commoners, and members of the upper class. Lee is the main reason listeners will stick with this lengthy audiobook. Through his consistent, authentic-sounding voices, his entertaining narration carries the story. M.B. � AudioFile 2017,