Murder and Undoing

Not technically a YA novel, but certainly of interest to my resident young adult reader (what an odd phrase this is - does this make me an old adult reader?), is a release from last year called The Suspicions of Mr Whicher: A Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective by Kate Summerscale. His eagerness to read the book may have to do with his having recently gone through a spate of Sherlock Holmes fever (and I am happy he's gone to the source before the release of the Guy Ritchie movie).

There is a fantastic website website which has a particular appeal to those of up growing up playing Clue rather than Nintendo. I haven't read the book yet myself - it keeps vanishing on me, but I am looking forward to it. Here's what novelist Sarah Waters (whose wonderful new book The Little Stranger I am currently reading) had to say about the book: “Brilliant...a pacy analysis of a true British murder case from 1860, the unraveling of which involved one of the earliest Scotland Y ard detectives and inspired sensation novelists such as Dickens and Wilkie Collins by exposing the dark secrets of the Victorian middle class home. Absolutely riveting.”

I'm also pleased to have a new adjective to add to my store - didn't know you could use the word that way but if anyone would know about pacy, it would be Waters.

Mr. Whicher is available through Bloomsbury/Raincoast here in Canada.