The Pleasures of Men

June 18, 2012
Biographer Williams (Becoming Queen) does something new with a familiar trope in her promising first novel, a thriller set in 1840 London. A Jack the Ripper–like serial killer, dubbed the Man of Crows, leaves his stabbed victims displayed with their hair stuffed into their mouths, their chests gouged in the shape of a star, and a penny placed on the exposed heart. The search for the murderer’s identity largely falls to Catherine Sorgeiul, an orphan living with an ostensibly kindly uncle. Still adjusting to the tumult of the big city, Catherine also struggles with her own sexuality and the hypocrisies of early Victorian society, even as the body count rises. In one distinctive touch, the author has Catherine identify so closely with the Man of Crows’ victims that she writes narratives in their names. Readers looking for more psychological sophistication than is usual in such historicals will be pleased.

August 1, 2012
A young lady of the privileged class becomes intrigued with a series of violent crimes in this thriller set in Victorian England. It's 1840, and orphaned 19-year-old Catherine Sorgeiul resides with her uncle in his London home. England is in the midst of a recession, and the streets in this section of the city are dangerous to traverse and strewn with clutter and filth. While her uncle encourages Catherine to become socially active--potential suitor, Constantine Janisser, and his parents come calling as do the daughters of a prominent family--she shuns their company and prefers to stay within the confines of the home. But when a serial killer, christened the Man of Crows by the newspapers (because of his unique positioning of each body), begins preying on young, vulnerable working-class women, Catherine's imagination is sparked, and she is irresistibly drawn to the case. She writes about each victim's life as she imagines it to be and begins to slip out of the house to secretly visit the murder sites. Fixated with each slaying, Catherine agrees to accompany Constantine and Miss Grey, an acquaintance, to a magic show that reenacts the murders, with unpleasant consequences. As each killing strikes closer and closer to home, and more people disappear from Catherine's life, the circumstances behind Catherine's delicate emotional state are slowly revealed, and eventually, the identity of the killer is disclosed. Veteran nonfiction author Williams' (England's Mistress, 2006, etc.) first attempt at fiction is uneven at best. While she writes with authority about this era in English history and paints a graphic image of the difficulties people faced during that time--be thankful for hot showers--the meandering narrative is often difficult to follow, and the story seems to lose its focus. At times the story is a pleasure to read, but not often enough to recommend.

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July 1, 2012
Historian Williams makes her fiction debut with a darkly twisted gothic set in the grimy streets of mid-nineteenth-century London, a city mired in the throes of a debilitating economic depression. Similar to many classic gothic tales, this one features a young woman literally and figuratively trapped by both her time and her personal circumstances in an appropriately creepy house. As mysteriously orphaned Catherine Sorgeiul watches the world go by from her windows, a serial killer known as the Man of Crows is stalking and murdering young women in the streets below. Catherine becomes increasingly obsessed with these grisly murders, and her morbid fascination morphs into a dangerous investigation where fact and fancy become increasingly confused. Just who is Catherine, and does the tragic reality that brought her to her brooding uncle's doorstep have anything to do with the grisly rampage? The author ratchets up the tension as mayhem and perversion bubble under the surface of a superficially straitlaced Victorian society.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)