Ann GRANGER : A rare interest in corpses (Lizzie Martin #1)

It is 1864 when Lizzie Martin takes up the post of companion to a wealthy widow who is also a slum landlord. Lizzie is intrigued to learn that her predecessor as companion disappeared, supposedly having run off with an unknown man. But when the girl's body is found in the rubble of one of the recently demolished slums around the prestigious new railway station at St Pancras, Lizzie begins to wonder exactly what has been going on. She has re-made the acquaintance of a childhood acquaintance, now Inspector Benjamin Ross, and with his help starts to investigate, risking her life to unearth the truth about the death of a girl whose fate seems interlinked with her own.

So, I started it yesterday, to cleanse my palate after reading Mansfield Park and before moving on to Northanger abbey. I wanted something light, fun and victorian if possible.

My first impression of the novel was that it was to be a 3 stars read. It's obvious the author has made her researches about that era (circa 1864 and the following years), but I felt the bare facts were fed to us through fiction : the fiction wasn't the main point, the details were, and they were coated with fiction to have us swallow them. The flashbacks and presentation of the present felt gauche.

Then, the coincidences : one coincidence : why not ; two coincidences : mmmm... ; three or more : nah. As I found on line : "The last half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth saw continued strong growth, in some ways replicating and reinforcing the pattern set in preceding decades. The over three million people living in Greater London in 1861 more than doubled to become over seven million by the 1910s". So, one person meeting other people related in some way to her in that much populated an area ? Nah. I read it some time ago in another novel ("H" by Sarah Burton) and don't care much about several coincidences.

Then I kept reading anyway and even if I found the point of view to be very XXth, XXIst century centered (what I mean is post XIXth century, a novelist of that era wouldn't have necessarily written that) on social and/or feminist subjects, it was still enjoyable, the more I read, the more I liked. I didn't care much about the mystery itself, yet I liked reading about Lizzie and her adventures. There was a teensy itsy bit of romance, but I think it's to be expected in that kind of books ? Yet it wasn't the major part. So, the more I read, the more I dived in the story.

This is the first instalment of the series. I never read Ann Granger before, but I heard much good about her. Am I eager to read the next book ? Not that in a hurry. Am I dismissing reading the next book ? No. I'll probably like it. If I need an easy, light, comforting read about Victorian era in between classics, I'll certainly read the next (the series might get even better ?), which is why I rated it 3.5 stars and not 3 stars. 3 stars = I won't probably read another one even if it was nice. 3.5 = I'll make the effort, and it won't be that much of an effort. So, not the best read, but an entertaining read.

If you want to read victorian novels, want to get acquainted with the way people lived back then, I think this is a very good way to start. I don't remember who recommended it to me (saw it on Booktube, but then I caught up recently on a whole month of videos, so I don't remember who), but thank you :)