"An East End Murder" by Charles Finch
This short story is only available as an e-book, which is all right with me, as I prefer to use my e-reader. (It's easier to turn the pages by pressing a button than it is to turn the pages when you have no thumbs.) But at the same time, I know there is something inexplicably special about holding an actual book in your hands. My housemate prefers paper books to e-books, but will read her favorite series as e-books if that is all that is available.
I was excited to read the short story, and began it within hours of finishing the previous Charles Lenox novel, A Stranger in Mayfair. Everything I had seen indicated that this short story was chronologically between A Stranger in Mayfair and the next-in-series A Burial at Sea. I am not so sure about that, because during the current part of the story, Charles speaks to someone who indicates his orders have come from a character that died in an earlier novel. I can forgive that oversight, but it did make me wonder as to where the author intended the story to fall chronologically.
Beyond the chronological issues, I was disappointed by the story because it seemed as though there was only the idea of a story there, and not the completion of one. Each time Charles went off with an idea, it seemed that the author got stuck at the door. The description was lacking, as was the development. The story moved, but it was a quick outline of what happened, not a true re-telling of the tale. That was good enough for Charles' rememberings in the cab on the way somewhere, but it was disappointing for the readers who had not lived the experience as Charles had. Charles could jump from one interview to the next easily because he was there and participated in them. The readers did not have that luxury, so the story moved too quickly and too cryptically. It's a great mystery, and a good story, it just needed to be flushed out a bit more.
Aside from my complaints with the story itself, I had a complaint with the e-book version. More than half of the download was preview chapters of the next-in-series novel, A Burial at Sea. This was a serious disappointment and I felt cheated out of a great adventure. I know this a publisher decision and not the author's, but it still felt deceptive to me. I paid for a short story, and I got half a story and an advertisement for the next book.
One Bear's Opinion: One Disappointing Cup of Gas Station Coffee and a Stale Danish
Happy Reading Everyone,
Oliver
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