Bleeding Heart Square, Large Print (2000) - Plot & Excerpts
Bleeding Heart Square is wonderful. Cast aside your preconceived notions of a typical "British Mystery" because this is so much more than that. Not just a mystery (my favorite genre), not just historical fiction (my second favorite genre), and not just British (another of my favorites), but a complex, deeply intricate combination of the three.After 100 pages or so to begin the book, I was wondering what exactly it was that I was reading, but right about then it all started to come together. The writing by Mr. Taylor is better than expected in the average whodunit and a class above what you normally find in this type of novel. The characters are deep and colorful, and the atmosphere is thick. The mystery keeps unraveling right up until the last pages. This is a winner, and I'm frankly a little confused about some of the low ratings by other goodreads reviewers.I will be looking for the other works of Andrew Taylor ASAP and can only hope they stack up to Bleeding Heart Square. I have found a new mystery writer that has quickly become one of my favorites. It is 1934 and 4 years ago Philippa Penhow went missing. A letter from her seemed to indicate that she had gone to America, but the situation is suspicious.Now Lydia Langstone has just left her abusive husband and runs to her father in Bleeding Heart Square, a man she has never met before. Also living in the same house in the square are Mrs. Renton, a seamstress; Mr Fimberry; and Mr Serridge, the landlord of the house. Another man, Rory Wentwood soon arrives to take the room in the attic. As the stories of the characters begin to intertwine we also get entries from Miss Penhow's diary. The diary entries give us a sense of what has happened between Miss Penhow and Mr Serridge. The rest of the story leads us deeper into the other doings of Serridge as well as his hanger-ons.I didn't like this one as much as the other books I've read by the author. I found it slow to develop and only the last hundred pages or so were truly interesting.
What do You think about Bleeding Heart Square, Large Print (2000)?
A little slow to get into, but an ok read.
—Annavictoriacx
