... the novel unfolds in a vividly evoked England during the bitter winter of 1893. From the first pages it promises the same gothic spookiness as its predecessor ... Death throws an ever-looming shadow over proceedings – the book’s sections are even named after parts of the Requiem Mass – but O’Donnell has no intention of serving up a standard Victorian chiller. Instead he has created a gloriously unorthodox confection, part Wilkie Collins, part Conan Doyle, with a generous handful of police procedural and a splash of Stella Gibbons’s Cold Comfort Farm. There is even a distinctly Hitchcockian interlude on a train ... structurally more satisfying and driven by a more compelling plot. O’Donnell has pulled off with brio something that might, in a lesser writer’s hands, have fallen horribly flat: he has written a coherent and satisfying novel that is both disquietingly eerie and properly funny. It is impossible to read it without laughing out loud. Sharp, impatient and eye-wateringly brusque, Inspector Cutter powers through the pages, relentlessly squashing the assiduous, overeducated Gideon with his scathing remarks. The determinedly diplomatic accounts Gideon writes of his superior’s interviews as he conducts his inquiries are comic works of art ... O’Donnell dispenses the waspish wit of the beau monde with Wildean relish ... Yet none of this detracts from the unsettling strangeness of the book’s central mystery ... The dramatic denouement is striking and pleasingly unexpected. And while the laughs provide welcome respite from the darkness, their greater achievement is to bring a kind of bracing tenderness to a tale that might, in these #MeToo times, have felt voyeuristic and exploitative. Beneath its spooky exterior The House on Vesper Sands is a paean to the unshowy virtues of determination, diligence and loyalty. It is also a cracking good read. The book ends with an epilogue that could be dismissed as superfluous, except that it plainly lays the ground for a sequel. Regardless of where one ends up filing this novel on the bookshelves, that is excellent news for us all.
Paraic O’Donnell starts off The House on Vesper Sands in winter 1893, re-creating a foggy metropolis of dark menace and eerie beauty, and populated by a properly Dickensian cast ... Readers may be inclined to struggle with keeping track of the tale’s various strands, and the occult aspect at the heart of the mystery won’t be to everyone’s taste, but O’Donnell’s rendering of the past is faithful not only to how people ate, spoke and dressed in 1893, but also to how they thought. The House at Vesper Sands summons up that spirit, beckoning it from a long dead world and into our own.
O'Donnell grabs his reader's attention with his strange and atmospheric opener and doesn't let go ... a mock-Victorian tour de force that dexterously blends the drama of Dickens, the sensationalism of Wilkie Collins, and the mystery of Conan Doyle, with added chills and humor poured into the mix for good measure ... O'Donnell keeps his reader gripped with his fast pace, ingenious plotting and narrative twists and turns. His re-created world of costermongers and eel vendors, gin shops and boardinghouses, gentlemen's clubs and séance salons is vividly authentic. Cutter's punchy dialogue elicits laughs while the soul-stealing and 'half shades' imbue the proceedings with a welcome supernatural streak. A fiendishly entertaining winter's tale.
It takes a certain audacity to write a novel that tips its hat so mischievously to the most celebrated Victorian novelist, but Paraic O’Donnell has more than enough talent to get away with it ... there is no trace of difficult-second-novel nerves in this accomplished historical mystery ... tightly constructed ... There is a breath of the supernatural in the plotting of this book, but it’s to O’Donnell’s credit that he doesn’t rely on ghostly happenings to explain or resolve his plot. Instead, there is absolute logic to what people do and why. Even so, the supernatural elements are taken seriously. Often, spiritualism is played for laughs but a seance here is genuinely chilling. There is a sense, at times, of pure evil at work ... The plot zips along, tension rising as the investigation draws towards Vesper Sands and a series of revelations that touch on issues of class, mistreatment of women, power and privilege. But O’Donnell doesn’t break off to moralise. The pace never drops. Nor does he get bogged down in world-building, the fatal flaw for so many historical novelists. The setting is impeccably evoked but in glimpses, as the reader is taken by the elbow and hurried through muddy streets, barely pausing to wonder what a costermonger actually does or why gin shops ever fell out of fashion. It all feels solidly convincing even if the writing is delicate. There is the sense that you are in safe hands, that O’Donnell has done the research so that you needn’t worry about it, that you can safely lose yourself in the world and mystery that he has so skillfully created ... Cutter and Bliss are a wildly mismatched pair and much of the considerable humour here comes from Bliss’s wide-eyed wonder at the Inspector’s short way with obstacles. Stern and sarcastic, Inspector Cutter can be enrolled immediately in the hall of fame of fictional detectives, not least because he is far more complex than he appears at first ... Despite the historical setting this is a thoroughly modern novel, with fully developed characters grappling with their own psychological issues. Again, O’Donnell touches on this rather than dwelling on it at the expense of the plot, but the notes are very definitely struck ... brilliantly written, compelling and satisfying in so many ways. It demands to be read by a fire on a cold winter evening (but make sure the doors are locked before you begin). I only wish it had been twice as long.
The novel tracks...intersecting paths to the truth, building suspense until the dramatic payoff. There’s good fun in the investigations ... There’s also some genre silliness ... One slightly ticklish issue is that the supernatural elements of The House on Vesper Sands are remarkably similar to those in David Mitchell’s recent fantasy novels ... Yet such concerns become quibbles once you’re ensconced in the rich, Gothic embellishments of Mr. O’Donnell’s prose ... The House on Vesper Sands performs a...kind of enchantment, transforming a chronicle of sordid crimes into an enjoyably eerie ghost story.
... imaginative and superbly written ... The blurb describes it as 'the love child of Dickens and Conan Doyle', and the influence of both is evident. He's a better prose writer than either, however; The House on Vesper Sands is elegantly crafted and paced, and - rare for historical fiction - consistently funny ... Cutter is the source of most of the comedy, with a tongue sharper than a cut-throat's blade which he's ever-willing to use on poor Gideon ... The story is well-plotted, with unexpected but welcome supernatural elements. And while O'Donnell has clearly researched thoroughly, he wears his learning lightly ... For all that, though, The House on Vesper Sands lacks something. It's a clever and well-done pastiche, a smooth facsimile of classic Victoriana, but I'm not sure it's much more. That spark of magic or authenticity isn't there. An enjoyable book - but also inert somehow, lifeless, too proficient for its own good.
... not a Sherlock Holmes mystery, but Paraic O'Donnell's sophomore effort is the next best thing ... O'Donnell brings his story's humor and darker themes into richly rewarding alignment ... very good.
Gideon forms an unlikely working partnership with Inspector Cutter of Scotland Yard’s CID, a superbly-delineated gruff personality who, intentionally or not on the part of the author, steals the show as the best character in the novel ... The reader is only allowed to understand elements of the plot as the narrative unfolds; the story does seem a little fragmented at times, with this reviewer having to consciously recall what had happened to the main characters in previous chapters, and it took a long while before I was fully absorbed into the story. Nevertheless it is a splendid historical gothic fantasy and very well told, with characters that resonate with life and humour. Some of the phrases the characters use appear a little too contemporary for 19th-century London—a minor quibble.
While it certainly works well as a mystery, its humor is reminiscent of the late Terry Pratchett, and its satirical tone will appeal to readers who aren’t typically among the historical mystery crowd ... Initially the setup for these different threads feels a bit tedious, but once they are woven together the pacing picks up considerably, to the extent that the end of the novel is explosively compelling ... While many historical mysteries focus on the upper class (genteel ladies solving murders or intrepid police inspectors navigating the world of the ton), O’Donnell examines the world of working-class Victorian London and champions those who inhabit it. The missing women here are all working class and overlooked, but their plight is no less important to Cutter or Octavia. It’s a vividly painted atmosphere that feels so real to the reader, you can almost smell the gin and coal dust ... The characters and humor that make The House on Vesper Sands shine would lend themselves well to a series—this novel is sure to make readers hunger for more.
...chilling ... The book defies genre classifications. At first blush, it’s a Victorian-era murder mystery, but as the plot zips along, it picks up elements of a supernatural thriller, a social commentary, and a literary drama ... there’s also a strong undercurrent of humor throughout ... an atmospheric mystery that casts a keen eye on power imbalances and gender inequality.
Paraic O’Donnell has a special talent for creating unique voices of characters. For instance, Inspector Cutter tries to be forbidding, but his soft side shines through ... Most intriguing is the spiritual thread that weaves its way through this story, which is subtle at first but constant ... enchanting and rough at the same time. Enjoy a trip back in time to this fascinating Victorian-era mystery.
This literary thriller, set in the late-Victorian era, received plaudits when it was published in the UK in 2018. It should be received every bit as warmly here.
... stellar ... Making smart use of classic gothic imagery, O’Donnell excels at concocting eerie scenes. Yet he’s also very funny, particularly in exchanges between the profane Cutter and the verbose but perceptive Bliss. Fans of Sarah Perry (not to mention Dickens and Wilkie Collins) will be captivated by this marvelous feat.
In the end, all the pieces fit together ... An intriguing, unexpected gothic mashup with elements of Dorothy Sayers, Wilkie Collins, and Josephine Tey.
