Just Finished Reading: The English Monster or The Melancholy Transactions of William Ablass by Lloyd Shepherd (FP: 2012) [398pp]

Plymouth, England 1564. Young Billy Ablass is starting to make his way in the world. Sent with a letter of introduction from his Father-in-law he is set on voyaging with Captain John Hawkins to make his fortune – enough to start a pig farm in his home village and settle down with his new wife. Sailing from England Billy sees this is a temporary adventure, a temporary break in a life already planned far into the future, a future of marriage, children and happiness. But life at sea is not at all what Billy expected it to be, it is brutal, vile and dangerous not only to the body and the mind but also to the very soul.

Wapping, London 1811. Thames police officer Charles Horton is alerted to a disturbance on the notorious Ratcliffe Highway. An argument had been heard by passers-by and then, suddenly, nothing. Just inside the open door he sees the first body, horribly murdered. On the stairs he finds the shop owners wife, dead and in the basement, most horribly of all a baby, killed in its crib. Days later a nearby tavern is the scene of a second slaughter with the owner, his wife and others killed most brutally. But who is responsible for this reign of terror. Horton is determined to find out using new techniques of detection and a precise logical mind. What he helps to uncover will call into question the deeply held beliefs of law officers throughout the area and even task the Royal Society to explain the inexplicable.

This is honestly a very strange book. It is as if the author had two interesting ideas that individually could not be made into a viable novel – so decided to stitch them both together. The strange thing is – it worked. It worked very well indeed. Essentially the story flips between the ‘transactions’ of Billy Ablass which has a decided fantasy element and the investigations of Charles Horton which is pretty much a standard (and very good) historical crime story. As both stories progress we start to suspect, and then finally learn, how they are linked which is when things start to get rather strange! Half of the interest to me, to be honest, was watching how the author so skilfully stitched this Frankenstein monster of a book together like a first class surgeon. Not only were both elements of the story – which were very different in tone for the most part – handled really well but the characters throughout had been designed in such a way that you just HAD to know what became of them. Even the minor characters were more than adequately filled out with backstories and believable motivations. Likewise the ending did not disappoint and even more than adequately set up the sequel which I shall be tracking down next year. Overall this was a rather odd but highly entertaining fantasy historical crime novel. Definitely recommended if you fancy something out of the ordinary.