Author: Lene Kaaberbol
Published: December 5th 2017 by Atria Books
Format: eBook, Paperback, 352 pages
Genre: Historical Suspense
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for an opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Series: Madeleine Karno #2
Dreadful. That is the only word that I can come up with to describe this long and drawn out book. Trying either to shock the reader with the subject matter or to lure them in with the detailed gynecological practices of a villainous doctor in 1880’s France, or if that is not enough, the unbeknownst relationships of Madeline Karno’s fiancé – which really served no point. The book should have been wall-banged within the first 100 pages.
Trying to disguise a failed, what we now call a cesarean section, as the acts of a French Jack the Ripper, Madeleine Karno, who we were introduced to in ‘Doctor Death’ begins to see tell tail signs and sets off to find the hideous person brutalizing the local prostitutes all in the name of science.
Lene Kaaberbol goes into curious detail about the time and place, but tends to go overboard for shock value. The doctor at the center of this fiasco reads more like Josef Mengele, the Auschwitz Angel of Death, in his need to find perfect subjects to rebuild France’s dwindling birth rates. Then throw in a person from August Dreyfuss’ past, and a photographer with his own naughty secrets, and those that should know better but do not do better when it comes to those in need.
Considering how I loved her first book in this series, this was a torture to read. The gruesomeness of the subject matter was not the issue for me, but rather how drawn out it all was. How in the end she tried to tie her storylines together and how unrealistic that it all played out. If there is a third book, I certainly hope that she tries not to throw too much in in hopes that something will catch the reader and that she reduces her fillers to keep the story flowing.
Trying to disguise a failed, what we now call a cesarean section, as the acts of a French Jack the Ripper, Madeleine Karno, who we were introduced to in ‘Doctor Death’ begins to see tell tail signs and sets off to find the hideous person brutalizing the local prostitutes all in the name of science.
Lene Kaaberbol goes into curious detail about the time and place, but tends to go overboard for shock value. The doctor at the center of this fiasco reads more like Josef Mengele, the Auschwitz Angel of Death, in his need to find perfect subjects to rebuild France’s dwindling birth rates. Then throw in a person from August Dreyfuss’ past, and a photographer with his own naughty secrets, and those that should know better but do not do better when it comes to those in need.
Considering how I loved her first book in this series, this was a torture to read. The gruesomeness of the subject matter was not the issue for me, but rather how drawn out it all was. How in the end she tried to tie her storylines together and how unrealistic that it all played out. If there is a third book, I certainly hope that she tries not to throw too much in in hopes that something will catch the reader and that she reduces her fillers to keep the story flowing.
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