Customer Reviews

Murder on Waverly Place (Gaslight Mystery)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Victoria Thompson gives us another trip through New York in the gaslight era. This time her heroine, midwife Sarah Brandt, is caught up in a murder that involves her mother, her nursemaid Maeve, and a crooked spiritualist operation. We have the usual convoluted twists and insight into a bygone era coming together for an entertaining mystery read. Unfortunately, I saw the solution to this one coming from a mile away.

The characterizations that make this series so compelling are slighted this time. Sarah's midwife duties disappear after the opening pages and she seems secondary or tertiary in much of the action. The usually volcanic detective Frank Malloy is entirely too calm and polite when dealing with Sarah, her mother, Maeve and the various other females who interfere in his investigation. Worst of all is that there is almost no sign of the developing romance (or whatever) between Sarah and Malloy.

Are we seeing signs of the publisher rushing the author? If so, back off and let the lady write!

Sarah finds herself pulled into the murky, late-Victorian world of questionable but fashionable spiritism when her mother, Mrs. Felix Decker, requests Sarah attend a seance with her in order to contact the spirit of Sarah's late sister, Maggie.

While seemingly unexplainable events transpire at the seance at Waverly Place, Sarah isn't buying any of it and discourages her mother from attending any future events.

Shortly thereafter, however, Sarah is summoned to the house on Waverly Place by Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy at the behest of her mother, who just happened to be attending a seance where a murder has just taken place of the woman who hosted the event; a woman, apparently, not well liked by anyone.

Suspects abound despite the fact that all evidence points to the lover of the young spiritist, Madame Saraphina, except for one slight problem: the boy wasn't in the room at the time.

Sarah, being the girl she is, immediately champions the young spiritist and her lover in an attempt to clear his name and Frank, being the guy he is (and the fact he's crazy about Sarah) proceeds with as much investigation as he dares, given that the clients who were involved in the seance are all members of society's upper crust.

Sarah and Frank discover nothing is quite as it seems as they carefully navigate the investigation and slowly unravel the secrets of the Privileged and the Parlor Snakes. The problem is, it's difficult to tell who belongs to which group.

The only 'negative' and disappointing aspect of this book, and why I didn't rate it with 5 stars, is the complete lack of romantic interaction between Frank and Sarah. Yes, we all like a well-crafted murder mystery - but the romantic element, which provides necessary texture to what is otherwise just another 'whodunit' is, for all intents and purposes, completely absent and I think was a disservice to the story as well as to the characters.

All in all, a cozy read, and I look forward to the next installment, provided we see some growth in Frank and Sarah's relationship. Two other endearing characters who did not make an appearance in this book were Frank's mother and Frank's son. I look forward to seeing more of them in the next books to come.

Over the years, Victoria Thompson has written some very lovely and compelling books featuring midwife Sarah Brandt and Detective Molloy. Her books have been atmospheric and her characters were thoughtfully and lovingly portrayed. Not so, this time. In fact, "Murder on Waverly Place" feels very convoluted and very rushed. Sarah and Molloy seem like they are mere shadows of their original characters just going through the motions to solve a not so compelling murder at a seance. I wish that I could say something positive about this book, but I can't think of a single thing except that I learned an abbreviated history of the flash light. I hope this is a momentary speedbump in what has been up until now a great series.

This book was slow and hard to get through. It does not begin to measure up to earlier books. First book of series which is actually boring.

The other ' Gaslight Mystery' books have been pretty good. This one is not. It was boring, didn't have much of a mystery, and the characters weren't interesting. Sarah's mother being taken in by a medium wasn't written very well. I thought she would be shocked and angry at the tricks of the seance, but, she and Sarah kept mooning over the medium as if she were the victim. This book was a page turner for me-I kept scanning every page and turning very quickly to get to the end. Bad book!

I have read all of the author's Gaslight Mysteries, and looked forward to yet another when I ordered this book. It was a real disappointment. In fact, I found myself simply turning pages, just to get to the end.

Entirely too talky! On and on and on about seances and vapid clues, page after page. I had hoped there would be secondary and maybe even tertiary plot lines to liven up the action a little, but no -- not a chance! If I could give the book LESS than one star, I would.

Maybe the author should finally give up on the series. She seems to have run out of all creativity.

I uaually really enjoy Ms. Thompson's Gaslight series, but this one was a bit of a yawner for me honestly. Maybe because it was so much about the spiritualism craze that was so popular in the mid-nineteenth century, but the book just wasn't as exciting as others have been for me. Sarah's mother is at a seance when one of the participants is stabbed. This puts Sarah and Frank in the picture because they have to somehow keep Sarah's mother out of it. There wasn't much suspense though. There also wasn't much personal interaction between Malloy and Sarah this time, so that was also a disappointment. Oh well, I still kind of enjoyed the story, and will still look forward to the next book in the series.

OK so I just finished reading this book. And being a huge fan of Thompson's I was very disappointed. I felt as if she just threw a story together, not paying attnetion to the details of what have made her past novels immensley popular. It was as if Sarah and Frank were two polite friends rather than two people who have grown closer and have a romance blossoming. Overall I felt the book was stripped off what has made this series so enjoyable! Hopefully her future books will be better. As well as having her publisher backing off a bit, so she can write a decent book.

I have enjoyed this series in the past but this one is dead, floating along on a sea of dialog that is neither well written nor interesting. There is no further character development, just a lot of perfunctory back story in the beginning. We feel none of the sexual tension between Malloy and Sarah that was present in the earlier books and none of the desperation of his situation. Add to that how obvious the guilty party is from the beginning, and this becomes a very sad decline from earlier work in this series.

In the past, I looked forward to each new book re-reading most of them. Murder at Bank Street (2008) was moderately interesting but a departure from the previous books in that additional characters, Frank Malloy's son and mother, were missing. Both of these characters added an interesting addition to the story.

This book also departs from the series in that the main character, Sarah Brandt, seems to be replaced by the character of Maeve. Being a mid-wife (which is how Sarah makes a living) has been an interesting aspect of each book with the exception of the last two books in which there has been little if no inclusion.

The relationship between Frank Malloy and Sarah Brandt is a non-starter.

Readers who like the plot of a seance murder mystery during this period may also enjoy the most recent book by Shirley Tallman featuring the character of Sarah Woolson, a young woman lawyer in San Francisco.

I understand that many readers will thoroughly enjoy this book. In my opinion, this book did not measure up to prior books.

I will check out the next book - but don't have the feeling of anticipation as in the past.
I hope to be able to prove myself wrong.