The Changeling Murders

Author/Guide: C S Quinn

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1667: Abduction. Murder. A conspiracy that could bring down the King.

ISBN: 978-1477805114
Genre: Crime, Historical

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What you need to know before your trail

In the wake of the Great Fire, a new city has emerged from the flames. The King has reopened the capital’s theatres, and the royal court is hell-bent on debauched entertainment. But amid the raucous festivities, an actress shows up dead, dressed in the clothes of a missing girl.

It’s a time of great change for thief taker Charlie Tuesday too: his old flame, Maria, is on the cusp of marrying someone else. But when she is abducted on the way to her wedding, Charlie realises her disappearance is linked to the murder.

Meanwhile, as Lent draws to a close, London is exploding into shocking riot. With brothels and theatres being attacked, Charlie and his sidekick Lily must find clues before an angry mob does. And as the mystery deepens and violence fills the streets, can Charlie solve a riddle that threatens not just Maria, but London itself?

Locations

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Travel Guide

London

This is perhaps one of the most colourful and gritty portrayal of London you will ever read. The city is one of debauchery in every form from brothels and opium houses in a city dirtied by ash, soot and murder.

Convent Garden

Covent Garden for example is described by sight and smell ; “The colourful sleaze of Covent Garden”

This is the area where the coulourful theatre life takes place each and every night. The Birdcage for example is “London’s most dangerous illegal theatres” What goes on in this kind of theatre is jaw dropping and fascinating in equal measure. It’s only one of many and what an atmosphere of vice this is! You can see, hear and feel the atmosphere, the smokey atmosphere, the dim-lit rooms and the debauchery is on fire.

Ratcliffe Highway

Know throughout history as the worst and most violent street in London’s east end. It’s where the Ratcliffe Highway murders were two vicious attacks on two separate families. The two attacks occurred just 12 days apart in December 1811. The first took place in a draper’s shop and the second, in an Inn.

Cheapside/The Shambles

Cheap and shambles? An apt name for the part of the city where a lot of the action takes place. The word cheap however used to mean “market” in medieval English. Many of the surrounding streets are named after the produce that was once sold in those areas of the market, including Honey Lane, Milk Street, Bread Street and Poultry.

Booktrailer Review

Susan: @thebooktrailer

Have a wet wipe to hand when you read this book as you’ll need to wipe yourself clean from all the stench and soot of London to come from its pages. I haven’t felt so immersed and in need of a wash after reading a novel in a long time and I mean that as a lovely complement! London is the den of debauchery and even those not in the opium dens or the whorehouses have to trudge the gritty, dirty streets to try and make a living, if not even just to survive.

Now that’s not all. This novel is the fourth in a series but I haven’t read the others and I didn’t feel I was missing out until the end of the book when I wondered why I hadn’t read the rest of this heart-pumping series. The theatre world was just fascinating and jaw-dropping both in detail and fantasy. There were threads of a magical and supernatural presence, which, for me, took the novel to an even better place. These illegal theatres just gave me a thrill reading about them and stepping inside, experiencing a world that the author has crafted with care and a mean glint in her eye.

If you love historical fiction, you’ll get goosebumps. If you don’t, you’ll get goosebumps and a new genre to get stuck into. The changeling murders is fascinating, wonderfully evoked and I haven’t even touched upon the changelings themselves…the fairy folk….now that really is something you have to discover for yourself, or is it that they will discover you?