Customer Reviews

Equivoque Principle

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This book starts out with a good opening of a betrayal and pious rich paying others to do their dirty work. However, after the opening, things get confusing. The storyline is there, but it is rather difficult to follow. It's set back in old London and so the language and setting are obviously more difficult to see. In some cases of description and explanations, the writer takes you through fluidly so that you can see and sense the plot. In others, he is choppy at best. I found myself rubbing my head from the headache of just trying to understand what was happening. However, by the end I was rewarded with a great tale of adventure, mystery, thriller, murder, and a good ending.

The characters are good. You find those you love and those you hate. Others, you understand and some you don't. Quaint, being the main character, is a good kind of guy you love to laugh at. His straightforwardness is what gets him into more trouble than most is worth and you definitely feel the connection to his fortune teller, Destine. With those two characters, you can not only visualize but even see through their eyes. Parm has had some bad luck but it hopefully changes, while Butter is a constant and reliable chracter. Sometimes it was difficult to visualize the chracters, but for the main ones you got.

There is a funny fight scene where Quaint and Butter have to take on a mob of guys, and mystery and enough action to keep you occupied. Overall, the story is good but could be better written. Maybe the next one will be better with a setting in Egypt. I know I liked this one enough to give it a try.

I had high hopes for The Equivoque Principle: a picaresque, pulpy adventure novel set in Victorian London, centered on a traveling circus? Yes, please! But, sadly, to this one I should have said "No, thanks."

This book is almost comically badly written, festooned with dangling participles and packed with cliches, clumsy exposition, and poorly chosen words. It is also full of "Victorian" characters who say thing like "Yeah" and "Feet, don't fail me now." Granted, when you're going for a pulp feel you don't expect finely wrought prose -- but minimal competence would be nice.

The plotting is equally slipshod -- characters behave in unlikely ways (if a mob is out to kill two people, is it really likely to beat them up a bit and then lock them in a freezer compartment instead of just ... KILLING them?), and the story is a tissue of cliches.

Craske clearly had a good idea for a series here -- the circus elements, the conjuring, the period setting. With experience, he may eventually write an enjoyable novel. His editor on this one, however, should be horsewhipped for letting it see the light of day in such an amateurish condition.

Part of what I enjoyed most was the timing and pace. There are lots of short, fast, action-oriented chapters with clever titles that add to the fun. I'll certainly check out the next book in the series.

It does read a bit like a first novel, (not sure if it is) but it is a fun, good read. My daughter and I both read it and liked it. Neither one of us had trouble following the story as the other reviewer did. We thought that it moved right along and was very cohesive. If you enjoy detective stories like Holmes or the Barker series you may like this too. It is a little more fanciful than those, and a little silly (not in a bad way though). It was great for a freebie!

I did't think I would like this at first when I realised it was set in 1853 London but I was pleasantly surprised. I did like this book a lot. Pretty fast paced, good story and the characters were interesting. I look forward to the next one.

This was an amazing story filled with all the right twists and turns to keep you reading. It was original and fun - I'll definitely be reading the next one too! I wouldn't be surprised if we see this as a movie in a few years.

I really enjoyed this story and found the charactors charming. It was free and needless to say, it was worth it. However one of the down sides was at times I found myself wanting the story to move along a little faster.

This is a great mystery story. I bought it on my Kindle and could not stop reading. Loved it.

I had high hopes for this novel ... the setting and premise sounded interesting, and even the cover is appealing. But the novel's early promise is ultimately unfulfilled, and I found myself actually making notes of its problems as I read. I won't enumerate them here, because I'm not the book's editor. But I've not heard the Irish accent referred to as a "drawl" before, and none of the other dialect rings true.

I can't help but wonder what role electronic publication played in the quality of the novel. It bears the name of a major publisher, but did it go through the same process that traditionally published books must endure? It couldn't have ... there are just too many mistakes and infelicities. Maybe lots of decent novels start out this way; if so, The Equivoque Principle testifies to the importance of the editing and publishing process.

This is the only book I have permanently deleted from my Kindle. The plot, dialogue, and characterizations are juvenile. It has nothing in common with Sherlock Holmes stories but the London setting. The characters use no logic or deduction and basically solve the mystery by accidentally overhearing the villains discuss their plot in full detail. I was also disgusted by the violence described - for example a priest cutting out someone's tongue with scissors.