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THE HARVEST MAN
by Alex Grecian
Putnam, May 2015
384 pages
$26.95
ISBN: 0399166440


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

The Scotland Yard's newly formed Murder Squad is back in action in the fourth book in Alex Grecian's historical series. This time, Walter Day has been assigned to desk work to give him time to recover from previous injuries, and Nevil Hammersmith has been fired from the squad. In spite of those circumstances, Hammersmith and Day manage to work together, along with Dr. Kingsley, to continue to try to track down the elusive, gone-to-ground-but-still-terrifying, Jack the Ripper. In addition to Saucy Jack, though, Day, Hammersmith, and the Murder Squad have new challenges. Prostitutes are again being murdered, but the methods don't really seem to be Jack's, suggesting a copycat is at work. Perhaps more frightening, another serial killer known as The Harvest Man is butchering citizens in their homes in horrific ways. Kingsley, called into examine the scene of one of these crimes, immediately realizes that Day would be the best man to investigate and insists he be allowed to help. Day, nursing a bad leg and an ever-growing need for drink, tracks down clues that eventually lead to the resolution of several crimes but not before he, Hammersmith, and Day's family come under serious threat.

The characters in this novel all have three previous books' worth of history and development, but Grecian does an exceptional job of presenting both characters and plot that stand firmly on their own, even if the reader isn't familiar with the previous books. Here, each of the main characters possesses enough complications to be interesting and fully developed, with hints of their pasts slipped in without giving too much of previous plots away. And while there are quite a few characters to keep up with, each is distinct enough and well-drawn enough that there's no confusing them or losing track of who's who. The plot, too, is complicated enough to hold the reader's interest throughout the almost 400 pages, but not so convoluted that it can't be followed. All of that adds up to a satisfying read that is also quite dark. These murderers are a frightening lot, and the dangers they present come across as very real. Grecian seems to accomplish this by creating believable murderers who, as several members of the Murder Squad point out, aren't the usual type. These aren't spouses killing spouses or random robberies gone wrong. These are madmen working according to a plan that ordinary people can't see, making it hard to guess what will come next so you can either catch the killer or protect yourself from him. Though the police are baffled by The Harvest Man's motivations, the reader, by seeing some of the murders from The Harvest Man's point-of-view, gets a glimmer of an idea of what's behind his crimes, but that does nothing to diminish the power of their horror. Then, too, nothing is completely explained in any of the cases, making them all the more true-to-life—and disturbing. The fact that the main characters, all of whom are likeable and presented in ways to make the reader care about them, find themselves under real threat also adds to the suspense.

The setting—Victorian London—is also well presented, although it's not overly dwelt upon. Nice touches include mentions of Kingsley's attempt to set standards of forensics and crime-scene preservation and emphasize how new this matter of detection was as well as how brilliant the early practitioners were as they both created methods and discovered killers.

Overall, Grecian creates an unsettling world filled with shadows and darkness—both explicitly portrayed and merely hinted at—as well as well-rounded, interesting characters. The result is a novel that can be enjoyed on its own but is likely to make the reader want to read the first three... and the fifth one that a cliff-hanger ending seems to promise.

§ Meredith Frazier, a writer with a background in English literature, lives in Dallas, Texas

Reviewed by Meredith Frazier, June 2015

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