Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Featuring: Adam Foole; William Pinkerton; Edward Shade
720 pages ISBN: 0374160538 EAN: 9780374160531 Hardcover Add to Wish List
BY GASLIGHT, Steven Price's second novel, opens in 1885
London. William Pinkerton, eldest son of the famous
detective agency founder, has traveled across the ocean in
search of clues to the whereabouts of Edward Shade. His
father tried to track down this criminal, and now William
is hoping a young woman, Mary Reckitt can point him in the
right direction. But then a young woman's head is found in
the Thames, and William and Scotland Yard's John Shore
identify her as Reckitt. So William's long-time search for
Shade, whom some doubt even exists, must go in a different
direction.
Adam Foole, a thief and con, has traveled to London because
of a letter from a woman with whom he had an affair 10
years before. This woman also happens to be the
aforementioned Mary Reckitt. The two men form a tenuous
bond to track down the woman's killer for their own
reasons, but William doesn't let go of his obsession with
Shade.
Not only does the novel take the reader all over
London—from séances to opium dens to the sewers—but it
travels the world including South Africa, India and all
over the United States. And it spans decades from Civil War
treachery to the present, from betrayal to betrayal, it
describes the intertwining lives of the Pinkertons and the
other characters that liven up this novel.
A poet, Steven Price has turned description to an art form.
My one caveat here is that sometimes the description
overtook the story, and I felt buried in detail. On the
other hand, some of his language is so vivid as to truly
paint pictures in the mind that give even more life to his
characters and their surroundings. Intrigued by the story
while reading it, I sometimes found it easier to lay down
then pick up again. I read a lot and while this is a lot
book, for it to have taken me nearly a week to read is
nearly unheard of for me.
That said, if you fancy historical fiction and like a
mystery that has layers and layers and stories within
stories and relationships within relationships, then BY
GASLIGHT will appeal. I may go back and check out Price's
earlier work, provided it isn't quite as long.
By Gaslight is a deeply atmospheric, haunting novel about
the unending quest that has shaped a man’s life.
William Pinkerton is already famous, the son of the most
notorious detective of all time, when he descends into the
underworld of Victorian London in pursuit of a new lead on
the fabled con Edward Shade. William’s father died without
ever finding Shade, but William is determined to drag the
thief out of the shadows.
Adam Foole is a gentleman without a past, haunted by a love
affair ten years gone. When he receives a letter from his
lost beloved, he returns to London to find her. What he
learns of her fate, and its connection to the man known as
Shade, will force him to confront a grief he thought
long-buried.
A fog-enshrouded hunt through sewers, opium dens, drawing
rooms, and séance halls ensues, creating the most unlikely
of bonds: between Pinkerton, the great detective, and Foole,
the one man who may hold the key to finding Edward Shade.
Steven Price’s dazzling, riveting By Gaslight moves
from the diamond mines of South Africa to the battlefields
of the Civil War, on a journey into a cityscape of grief,
trust, and its breaking, where what we share can bind us
even against our darker selves.
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