Customer Reviews

Bones in London

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I enjoyed these short stories. The writer was adept at painting a work picture that put one right into the setting.

A fun read for those who love the classic mysteries from the early 20th century.

Love the character. Love the tales. Don't love the ability to not easily go from tale to tale. Otherwise no complaints at all.

Bones is an interesting character, as he alternatively stumbles into money succuess, or understands the con.

I'm not sure how I would classify them, as they aren't really crime or mysteries. Definitely closer to crime, but I would more call them personal interest stories.

Get the free Kindle version and give them a try. Bones definitely has an interesting mode of speech.

The issue here is not the Edgar Wallace story, which, while not the strongest of the "Sanders" novels, rounds out the stories of the main characters (Bones/Tibbets, Hamilton and Sanders) nicely. The issue is this sub-amateurish printing. Not only is it simply a stack of 8 1/2" x 11" sheets bound as a paperback; but the chosen font is Courier. Courier! Of all the lame fonts to choose. Hey, it's not 1980! There are other choices out there; and nearly all are easier to read and better looking. No publisher uses Courier as the main font of a book for good reasons. Truly unbelievable. Just to add more insult to the mess: paragraphs are not indented, just separated by blank lines; the text of the last page of each chapter is vertically centered on the sheet, even if it is just three or four lines long, which is disconcerting; the title page consists simply of the title and author in the same font size as the text itself. The edition most closely resembles the work of a marginally competent high-schooler with no sense of aesthetics.

These faults are completely unnecessary. A few seconds of thought and a few mouse clicks would improve the imprint dramatically. A little more effort with the printer and binder would produce a perfectly respectable edition. Based on my assumption that all their releases suffer from the same lack of professionalism, I recommend avoiding all Filiquarian Publishing products (identifiable by their excruciatingly plain black and white covers and the ironic "High Quality Paperback" in large letters at the top), unless there are no alternatives available whatsoever. Without exaggeration, I would prefer a foxed, water-stained and roughly-used copy.

It is truly sad that this well-intentioned effort to re-issue a classic novel has been so needlessly wasted.