Everyone in the book group found this book hard to read, we felt that this was because we had all gone into it thinking it would be a ripping good mystery story. However, in actual fact it was more like a history book that just happened to be about a historical murder mystery. If we had read it thinking of it more as a history book we might have enjoyed it a little more.
Most of the people in the group enjoyed reading about the well known historical characters mentioned in the book such as Charles Dickens. We also enjoyed finding out just how different the class system was in Whichers day rather than today. We felt that he didn't manage to get on with this particular mystery very well because he wasn't of the correct class to talk to people or get information from people. However, we also felt that given that detectives were such a new thing Whicher seemed supremely well suited to being one, he certainly had the ability to notice things which the other police officers seemed to either ignore or not notice at all.
We were a little disappointed at the end of the book given that there was no real conclusion in our eyes, but then again this is the way in real life things aren't always tidy. As readers we weren't able to seen the evidence as clearly as either Whicher or the author, we were in fact seeing things through at least two different pairs of eyes before we got anywhere near the information. Either of these pairs of eyes could have massively distorted the information. Not to mention no-one can know the real truth of the matter unless you're able to get into the brain of the killer.
Most of the characters in this book we felt were very dry and one dimensional, we didn't really get to know anyone as they were just mentioned as pieces of evidence. This meant that we didn't come to like any of the characters, who were in fact real people although it is hard to keep remembering this fact. We weren't sure whether someone like Philippa Gregory might have gone about writing this story in a completely different way, however she does tend to take liberties with some historical people which may have had a detrimental effect on this murder mystery.
Overall we gave this book 3.5 out of 10. We felt that it needed to be made clearer that this is much more like a historical document than a murder mystery.
Most of the people in the group enjoyed reading about the well known historical characters mentioned in the book such as Charles Dickens. We also enjoyed finding out just how different the class system was in Whichers day rather than today. We felt that he didn't manage to get on with this particular mystery very well because he wasn't of the correct class to talk to people or get information from people. However, we also felt that given that detectives were such a new thing Whicher seemed supremely well suited to being one, he certainly had the ability to notice things which the other police officers seemed to either ignore or not notice at all.
We were a little disappointed at the end of the book given that there was no real conclusion in our eyes, but then again this is the way in real life things aren't always tidy. As readers we weren't able to seen the evidence as clearly as either Whicher or the author, we were in fact seeing things through at least two different pairs of eyes before we got anywhere near the information. Either of these pairs of eyes could have massively distorted the information. Not to mention no-one can know the real truth of the matter unless you're able to get into the brain of the killer.
Most of the characters in this book we felt were very dry and one dimensional, we didn't really get to know anyone as they were just mentioned as pieces of evidence. This meant that we didn't come to like any of the characters, who were in fact real people although it is hard to keep remembering this fact. We weren't sure whether someone like Philippa Gregory might have gone about writing this story in a completely different way, however she does tend to take liberties with some historical people which may have had a detrimental effect on this murder mystery.
Overall we gave this book 3.5 out of 10. We felt that it needed to be made clearer that this is much more like a historical document than a murder mystery.
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