Mad Hatters Holiday [Hardcover]

Peter Lovesey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1990

September, 1882 and Albert Moscrop takes a vacation in Brighton. Mingling with the seaside crowds, he chances upon Zena Prothero, a beautiful woman whose husband takes her for granted. Accepted into their family circle, Moscrop soons find himself at the centre of a sensational and gruesome murder.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Borgo Pr (June 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809590220
• ISBN-13: 978-0809590223
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,724,650 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Murder in Brighton Beach in 1882, May 21, 2002

By 

S. Schwartz "romonko" (alberta canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mad Hatters Holiday (Hardcover)

Lovesey is a wonderful author. This book starts out slow, but the first 1/3 is the best description of holidaying in Brighton in the latter part of the 19th century that I've ever read. Then when Cribb and Thackery are called in to solve a grisly murder, the book becomes a cracking whodunit. The story is complex and has a surprising ending. At first I didn't understand the meaning of the title, but that too becomes clear when it is determined who the initial murderer is. Cribb is wonderful in this book. The more that I read this series, the more I wish there were more books than the seven that were written in this particular series. Mr. Lovesey could teach classes on writing tight plots, and ingenious mysteries. He also achieves a real sense of time and place that you don't often see, especially in murder mysteries.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Quaint and quirky, September 29, 2005

By 

Beverley Strong (Australia) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mad Hatter's Holiday (Mass Market Paperback)

Albert Moscrop, owner of a London shop which sells binoculars and telescopes, is a voyeur, in the sense that he is a watcher, a man who lives his life vicariously through watching the comings and goings of other people. This summer he has elected to spend his holiday weeks at the seaside town of Brighton. The year is 1882, and the town is alive with the fashionable and the would be fashionable, who spend their days either promenading or taking part in the newly fashionable sea bathing, descending from bathing machines pulled right on to the edge of the water, and delicately immersing themselves for the good of their health. Moscrop becomes entranced by an attractive young woman, mother of a small child and step mother to an aggressive, thoroughly objectionable teenaged boy, and does everything he can to engineer an introduction to her. Her elderly husband, Doctor Prothero, is a flirtatious man who largely ignores his wife, and who makes sure that he is free in the evenings to pursue his amorous attentions to a local beauty, by insisting that his wife takes a dose of Chloral to make her sleep soundly. When the dismembered body of a young woman is discovered, buried in the sand of the seashore, the local police call on the services of Scotland Yard veterans, Sergeant Cribb and Constable Thackeray, and not only are the members of the Prothero family involved, but Albert Moscrop's voyeuristic tendencies come under the attention of the police.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars LOONEY VOYEUR ON VACAY AT BEACH, September 18, 2010

By 

Scot Bedford "buk guru" - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mad Hatter's Holiday (Paperback)

This Victorian procedural is set in the seaside town of Brighton during summer holiday. The book spends the first 100 pages inside the mind of voyeur named Moscrop as he stalks, spies, and fantasizes about hot babes seen through the end of his telescope. It has been tedious reading 100 unadulterated pages from the perspective of a lunatic wherein the plot is not advanced. In the 2 prior Lovesey works I have read and reviewed THE DETECTIVE WORE SILK DRAWERS, and WOBBLE TO DEATH
I was not confronted with this odd style. Sgt. Cribb and Constable Thackery have just arrived on the 2:15 train from London. I am in suspense as to whether they can redeem this mystery from mediocrity. About 100 pages later Cribb has tied a bow around this package and solved the riddle. This is my least favorite Sgt. Cribb so far. The first pages are an elaborate red herring. There is little compelling action. My fave THE DETECTIVE WORE SILK DRAWERS explores bare knuckle boxing under THE LONDON RULES; is a better place to start. This one is good for an old ladies tea party.