Modern Good Reads discussion

Book Of The Month for June, 2013, THE YARD ,

by NYT Bestselling author Alex Grecian .

ENTER HERE TO WIN ONE OF TWO SIGNED COPIES OF 'THE YARD'

Read the New York Times Bestseller Book Review Here:

Nature of the Beast
‘The Yard’ by Alex Grecian

Review By MARILYN STASIO
Published: May 25, 2012

"Admit it, Victorian mystery fans. We’ve been spoiled by the rigorous scholarship of writers like Peter Ackroyd, lulled by the formal elegance of stylists like Anne Perry. In short, we’ve lost touch with the lurid traditions of the 19th-century potboiler.

Consider THE YARD (Putnam, $26.95) a crude corrective to those literary leanings. This deliciously trashy first novel by Alex Grecian walks the genre back to the era of Jack the Ripper with its bloody tale of a serial killer who is systematically butchering detectives from Scotland Yard’s recently formed Murder Squad. “Jack was the first of a new breed,” Sir Edward Bradford, the police commissioner who created this elite division, remarks. “He opened a door to certain deranged possibilities and there will be more like him.

Two upstanding if rather dull police officers take the lead on the case, but you’re better off watching Dr. Bernard Kingsley, the pioneering forensic pathologist who cleans up the primitive procedures at the London morgue and does clever things with the promising new science of “finger marks.” Grecian has a talent for capturing gory details, and his revolting rendering of one of Dr. Kingsley’s autopsies is outdone only by his extremely vivid (and strangely moving) account of a murder.

Given this natural aptitude, it doesn’t seem to matter so much that the author introduces historical references awkwardly or that his use of the period vernacular is untrustworthy. Bounding from the workhouse to the lunatic asylum to the stinking streets, he does outstanding descriptive work on the mad and the maimed, the diseased and the demented.
Children receive his special ­attention.

There are cameo appearances by a little match girl, dead of phosphorous poisoning, and a small boy trapped in the chimney of a rich man’s town house, as well as a more comprehensive account of the suffering of one poor child who survives the horrific experience of being “adopted” by a murderer.

If Charles Dickens isn’t somewhere clapping his hands for this one, Wilkie Collins surely is."

Thanks so much for sharing, Christopher - great stuff!

I read somewhere that there is a giveaway?? If yes , how can I participate?? And is it international??

Abhishek wrote: "I read somewhere that there is a giveaway?? If yes , how can I participate?? And is it international??"

Thanks for the reminder, Abhishek, I've added it in the post above.