These Shallow Graves by Jennifer Donnely: Victorian Murders!

These Shallow Graves 

by 

Jennifer Donnelly

This book felt like a whole bunch of Victorian/Mystery tropes kind of slammed together. That’s not to say it was bad by any means in fact I enjoyed it. 

And I’m sure it brought a few new things to the table (like it was in New York!) but on the whole it was a pretty standard mystery. Suspicious murder, quirky pathologist and his dead bodies, scarred henchmen, lots of lock picking and Nancy Drew-ing around, 

And the obligatory super-hot reporter (an equally hot policemen can be substituted).

Actually speaking of the police . . . WHERE the HECK where they?

 I mean I know that during the investigations they were payed off and stuff but still. Don’t you think that when the body count reached, I don’t know, five or six somebody would say ‘hey maybe we should actually look into this’?  

Still it was a perfectly enjoyable book. With just enough creepy atmosphere and even a bit of action to keep me interested. But enough hemming and hawing lets talk about the characters. its a list because of course there's a list.

The characters

·        Jo: she’s the protagonist. I liked her well enough but there were certainly times when I slammed my palm into my forehead. She had her moments when she was awesome and sassy and dry. But then there were times when I swear her brain turned off for a second. She was definitely naive but she worked hard anyway and by the end she actually came out on top and I was quite impressed so . . . all in all not bad. I tip my hat to you ma’am.

·        Eddie: He is the aforementioned hot reporter. How do I know he was hot? Jo mentioned it. A lot. 

           But he was still nice. Kind of like Jo he had his moments when he was great and sarcastic and I even laughed a few times. But then there would be a 180 and he’d be a bit of a prat. Still I liked him and I definitely felt a Flynn/Rapunzel vibe from him and Jo with her being all like ‘adventure yes!’ and then ‘adventure no!’ while Eddie just kind of followed her around with long-suffering sighs.

·        

Oscar: Quirky guy who does autopsies which I probably shouldn’t have found hilarious but I did. He definitely shipped Jo and Eddie and he was completely shameless about it.

Basically Oscar

So on to the things I really liked

·        I loved the setting, turn of the century 1800/1900 is a time that I am currently obsessing over

·        I am a sucker for murder mysteries, even though this was definitely no Sherlock Holmes (I predicted the bad guy by like the first page) it still had a few twists that I didn’t immediately see coming

·        There was sort of a love triangle

·        But not really

·        Basically Jo gets engaged to Bram who of course stands in her way of crushing on Eddie

·        And I really loved the fact that he was actually a nice guy

·        Like I was expecting him to be a complete git because that’s how most books deal with the whole ‘obstacle to true-love’ thing. But thank goodness that trope at least was left out.

·        The plot had very few slow bits

·        And when it did it usually had sassy inner dialog from Jo to keep you company

·        Or it had long monologues in which she wondered if Eddie really loved her

Which transitions into the stuff that I didn’t really like

·       Like I said the romance. It was alright just not great. this one had me squinting and groaning at times. Not to say that I didn’t smile at the cute bits I’m just eternally picky.

·        Oh my gosh who kept letting Jo out of the house alone because I swear whenever she was on her own she would have a near death experience.

·        There was also many time skips, like a chapter would end on a cliffhanger and then the next would pick up with everything all fixed and then go back and tell you about an extremely lucky occurrence that helped them get out of it. Why?! I don’t understand.

·        Soooo many prostitute jokes. Soo many.

SPOILERS FYI

The bad guy was ridiculously easy to spot. Maybe I just read too much (pffft no such thing) but it’s always the uncle. Always. Just run away from the all the uncles they are always bad news I swear. I was mildly disappointed because I do love a book that can trick me but needless to say this did not.

SPOILERS OVER

So did I like it? Yeah I did. It wasn’t overly sensational or super unpredictable but it was solid little romp into the mystery world. Though I might be biased because VICTORIAN ERA yay!