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richard_morrow's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Walter Day has lost his memory and has been missing for over a year. Automatically the tone of this final entry feels completely different to the previous four and you’re hoping (perhaps naively) for a resolution that leaves all the main characters breathing even though the threat of violence and death is lingering from the opening lines. A series of brutal murders starts to close the net around Saucy Jack. Dark and exciting throughout. A fitting ending to a great series- equal parts exciting, intriguing and gory.
timgrubbs's review against another edition
3.0
An odd ending to the London Murder Squad series…
Lost and Gone Forever by Alex Grecian wraps up the London murder squad books…
Inspector Walter Day has been missing for a year and private detective Neville Hammersmith has been searching for him along with his other cases…
When an amnesiac man stumbles into the London cold, it’s unusual when a few days later unknown people start mistaking him for the long kissing Walter Day…only for it to seem Day has lost all memory of his life during his year long imprisonment by his captor…directly following up from the Harvest man novel…
Meanwhile Jack the Ripper continues his revenge on those who previously locked him up (as covered in the third book in this series), while a duo of French killers are hired to eliminate him for good…
This book is kind of a mess and a step back from the last two which I liked…even if it continues some of the plots the author previously introduced…
Lost and Gone Forever by Alex Grecian wraps up the London murder squad books…
Inspector Walter Day has been missing for a year and private detective Neville Hammersmith has been searching for him along with his other cases…
When an amnesiac man stumbles into the London cold, it’s unusual when a few days later unknown people start mistaking him for the long kissing Walter Day…only for it to seem Day has lost all memory of his life during his year long imprisonment by his captor…directly following up from the Harvest man novel…
Meanwhile Jack the Ripper continues his revenge on those who previously locked him up (as covered in the third book in this series), while a duo of French killers are hired to eliminate him for good…
This book is kind of a mess and a step back from the last two which I liked…even if it continues some of the plots the author previously introduced…
topdragon's review against another edition
4.0
The previous book in this series, [b:The Harvest Man|23281833|The Harvest Man (Scotland Yard's Murder Squad, #4)|Alex Grecian|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1417984822i/23281833._SY75_.jpg|42819758], left us on a major cliffhanger. Just what happened to Inspector Walter Day and will we ever see or hear from him again? That’s just what his friends, family, and coworkers think too, especially after a year has gone by when this book opens.
This series has evolved from a fairly typical late 19th century London crime series featuring the Scotland Yard murder squad (a new concept in fighting crime) to a much more mysterious and even bizarre plot that circles around Jack the Ripper. While Saucy Jack has been more of a prominent background character in previous books, this time around he is the central bad guy. And a bloody weird bad guy he is. Joining in the fun is a new mercenary couple named Mr. and Mrs. Parker who are even weirder but in a humorous sort of way.
This could stand as the last book of the series although I have seen a Q&A wherein the author has stated he has plans for a sixth book and then even more that feature Nevil Hammersmith (Good: he's evolved into one of my favorite fictional characters). I’ve enjoyed this series so far and hereby join the chorus asking Mr. Grecian to make it so. I do agree with many other reviewers, however, that it is time to move on from the Jack the Ripper stuff.
If and when the next book in this series appears, I will certainly be reading it.
This series has evolved from a fairly typical late 19th century London crime series featuring the Scotland Yard murder squad (a new concept in fighting crime) to a much more mysterious and even bizarre plot that circles around Jack the Ripper. While Saucy Jack has been more of a prominent background character in previous books, this time around he is the central bad guy. And a bloody weird bad guy he is. Joining in the fun is a new mercenary couple named Mr. and Mrs. Parker who are even weirder but in a humorous sort of way.
This could stand as the last book of the series although I have seen a Q&A wherein the author has stated he has plans for a sixth book and then even more that feature Nevil Hammersmith (Good: he's evolved into one of my favorite fictional characters). I’ve enjoyed this series so far and hereby join the chorus asking Mr. Grecian to make it so. I do agree with many other reviewers, however, that it is time to move on from the Jack the Ripper stuff.
If and when the next book in this series appears, I will certainly be reading it.
pickleballlibrarian's review against another edition
5.0
Inspector Walter Day has been held captive by Jack the Ripper for a whole year. Read how he deals with it and tries to protect those he loves by avoiding his real life. Also a lot of strong women characters in this book! One who is dangerous, one who has the makings of a great detective, and one who takes charge of her family. Lots of excellent storylines!
kathydavie's review against another edition
4.0
Fifth (and last, I think) in the Scotland Yard's Murder Squad British historical detective mystery series and revolving around Inspector Walter Day. It's set in spring 1891 in London.
My Take
Omigod...you'll crack up at Grecian's re-appearance in the world. I gotta say Day was quite the entrepreneur, in his recycling business. Don't ask. It's disgusting.
There is plenty going on. Walter is lost in his head, needs to earn a living, and is afraid of his kidnapper who keeps popping up. Newly widowed, Hatty is embracing the possibilities and having such fun being a detective. Claire is coping with four children and no husband and dealing with her cretin of a father. Grecian gets Nevil's frustrations across quite well. The Parkers...eeek...Grecian has created a truly nasty couple in the Parkers. All those thoughts Mr Parker has are terrifying, particularly with reference to his partner, and yet he loves, loves, loves her, even as he ties her up to keep himself safe. Interestingly, we don't get Mrs Parker's perspective but her words, and those are even more terrifying. As for Jack...as horrible as he is, he is surprisingly not as creepy as Mrs P.
There are a number of points where I'm confused. Day sounds as if he's truly lost his memory and yet later on in the story, it sounds a'purpose. Then there's the end with Dr Kingsley, and I'm wondering which was the end. The one in the alley or the one in his bed?
It's interesting that Grecian does so well in conveying the manners and mores of the time period, until he slips up with Beatrice Kingsley being at university. It's pretty radical for a woman to attend college in this time.
Nevil is an idiot. And his actions make me think that Grecian isn't actually done with this series. He's done so well in tidying things up, but Nevil's proposal — to the wrong woman and for the wrong reason — makes me think Scotland Yard's Murder Squad still has life ahead.
It's that third person global subjective point-of-view that provides perspectives from so many different characters, providing so much background into their thoughts and emotions. And all those secrets...
The Story
Employed by the parent-beleaguered Claire, Nevil has been spending every minute of every day searching for Walter, even as Jack is busy brainwashing Walter and tidying up members of Kartsphanomen.
A Jack who hides in plain sight.
The Characters
Inspector Walter Day went missing one year ago. Claire is his wife who had given birth to twins — Winifred and Henrietta — shortly before Walter disappeared. She has also published a book of poetry under the pen name Rupert Winthrop. Her adopted boys are the worried Robert and Simon (The Harvest Man, 4). Tabitha is the new governess...who probably won't last. Arthur Day is Walter's father and a valet.
The manipulative and wealthy Leland Carlyle, her absolute jerk of a father, is from Devon. His wife, Eleanor, bends to him.
Anna is the heroine in Claire's new story, The Wandering Wood. Other characters include Peter; Marionette Puppet, a.k.a., Mary Annette; Babushka is a Russian doll; the Kindly Nutcracker; Rocking Horse; and, Jack.
Esther Paxton, Walter's new landlady, is a draper running a clothing shop. Ben is her deceased husband. The bright Ambrose is a fourteen-year-old homeless boy, brilliant at chess. Jerome is another one of the gang.
Former Sergeant Nevil Hammersmith was fired and opened his own detective agency, the Hammersmith Agency. He employs the affordable Eugenia Merrilow as a secretary; the thrilled Hatty Pitt becomes a detective (both ladies appeared in The Harvest Man). Timothy Pinch is Hammersmith's roommate and working with Dr Kingsley.
Blackleg, who has aided Nevil in the past, is at the center of certain crime rings in London.
Plumm's Emporium is...
...modeled on Harrod's and owned by John Plumm, entrepreneur. Joseph Hargreave, a.k.a., Kitten, is his lieutenant/manager. Mr Oberon is the manager who takes Hargreave's place. The very deaf Alastair Goodpenny sold his kiosk and invested in Plumm's (The Harvest Man). Mr Swann splits. Gregory is a guard.
Dr Richard Hargreave is Joseph's worried brother. Ruth Ruskin is a neighbor of the Hargreaves.
Scotland Yard
Sir Edward Bradford is the commissioner of police; Elizabeth is his wife. The number of inspectors on the Murder Squad have doubled in this past year and include Jimmy Tiffany, Michael Blacker, and Tom Wiggins. Sergeant Kett continues to act as liaison between the constables and inspectors. Sergeant Fawkes can stand in for him.
Dr Bernard Kingsley is the official forensics examiner for the Metropolitan Police, busily introducing scene of crime methods, and teaches at the University College Hospital. Fiona Kingsley, the doctor's daughter, is a brilliant artist who once worked for her father and now sketches witness descriptions for Scotland Yard, and she has been illustrating Claire's books. Catherine had been Fiona's mother; she died of consumption. There is an older sister, Beatrice, away at university.
Constable Colin Pringle had been murdered in The Yard, 1.
The Kartsphanomen are…
…a society of men from all levels of society dedicated to meting out justice…with eye-for-an-eye punishment along the way. The naive and hypocritical high judge takes too much into his own hands.
Jack the Ripper, a.k.a., Saucy Jack, is terrifying. Mr and very psychopathic Mrs Parker are a cold pair of fish...and assassins. There is some confusion as to if the missus is his daughter, his partner, and/or his lover. Hmmm, she can't be his daughter as he mentions early in the story that they played together as children.
Jim has an in with a puppet show. Potter-Pirbright is a valet at Carlyle's gentlemen's club.
The Cover and Title
The gray cover is a fog, a metaphysical reference to Claire and Walter, as they stumble through the mists, and may be Lost and Gone Forever. It's also a scene from within the story, of chairs scattered in the fog, a man's silhouette on the right. The title is at the top in a white ghostly serif font, a chalkline underlining each word. Below that, in black, is the series information. At the bottom is the author's name using the same white font as the title. Beneath that, in white, is an info blurb.
My Take
Omigod...you'll crack up at Grecian's re-appearance in the world. I gotta say Day was quite the entrepreneur, in his recycling business. Don't ask. It's disgusting.
There is plenty going on. Walter is lost in his head, needs to earn a living, and is afraid of his kidnapper who keeps popping up. Newly widowed, Hatty is embracing the possibilities and having such fun being a detective. Claire is coping with four children and no husband and dealing with her cretin of a father. Grecian gets Nevil's frustrations across quite well. The Parkers...eeek...Grecian has created a truly nasty couple in the Parkers. All those thoughts Mr Parker has are terrifying, particularly with reference to his partner, and yet he loves, loves, loves her, even as he ties her up to keep himself safe. Interestingly, we don't get Mrs Parker's perspective but her words, and those are even more terrifying. As for Jack...as horrible as he is, he is surprisingly not as creepy as Mrs P.
"Because he's no doubt off doing something more fun ... Something gooey, like slitting open a serving wench and turning her on a spit over a crackling fire. Watching the fat roll down the skin of her thighs and sizzle on the coals."Day's inability to remember his past was annoying, if only because he was in such denial and because of that ending... Nor do I understand why Jack wants him. Oh, I have plenty of guesses, but I want to know what Grecian thinks.
There are a number of points where I'm confused. Day sounds as if he's truly lost his memory and yet later on in the story, it sounds a'purpose. Then there's the end with Dr Kingsley, and I'm wondering which was the end. The one in the alley or the one in his bed?
It's interesting that Grecian does so well in conveying the manners and mores of the time period, until he slips up with Beatrice Kingsley being at university. It's pretty radical for a woman to attend college in this time.
Nevil is an idiot. And his actions make me think that Grecian isn't actually done with this series. He's done so well in tidying things up, but Nevil's proposal — to the wrong woman and for the wrong reason — makes me think Scotland Yard's Murder Squad still has life ahead.
It's that third person global subjective point-of-view that provides perspectives from so many different characters, providing so much background into their thoughts and emotions. And all those secrets...
The Story
Employed by the parent-beleaguered Claire, Nevil has been spending every minute of every day searching for Walter, even as Jack is busy brainwashing Walter and tidying up members of Kartsphanomen.
A Jack who hides in plain sight.
The Characters
Inspector Walter Day went missing one year ago. Claire is his wife who had given birth to twins — Winifred and Henrietta — shortly before Walter disappeared. She has also published a book of poetry under the pen name Rupert Winthrop. Her adopted boys are the worried Robert and Simon (The Harvest Man, 4). Tabitha is the new governess...who probably won't last. Arthur Day is Walter's father and a valet.
The manipulative and wealthy Leland Carlyle, her absolute jerk of a father, is from Devon. His wife, Eleanor, bends to him.
Anna is the heroine in Claire's new story, The Wandering Wood. Other characters include Peter; Marionette Puppet, a.k.a., Mary Annette; Babushka is a Russian doll; the Kindly Nutcracker; Rocking Horse; and, Jack.
Esther Paxton, Walter's new landlady, is a draper running a clothing shop. Ben is her deceased husband. The bright Ambrose is a fourteen-year-old homeless boy, brilliant at chess. Jerome is another one of the gang.
Former Sergeant Nevil Hammersmith was fired and opened his own detective agency, the Hammersmith Agency. He employs the affordable Eugenia Merrilow as a secretary; the thrilled Hatty Pitt becomes a detective (both ladies appeared in The Harvest Man). Timothy Pinch is Hammersmith's roommate and working with Dr Kingsley.
Blackleg, who has aided Nevil in the past, is at the center of certain crime rings in London.
Plumm's Emporium is...
...modeled on Harrod's and owned by John Plumm, entrepreneur. Joseph Hargreave, a.k.a., Kitten, is his lieutenant/manager. Mr Oberon is the manager who takes Hargreave's place. The very deaf Alastair Goodpenny sold his kiosk and invested in Plumm's (The Harvest Man). Mr Swann splits. Gregory is a guard.
Dr Richard Hargreave is Joseph's worried brother. Ruth Ruskin is a neighbor of the Hargreaves.
Scotland Yard
Sir Edward Bradford is the commissioner of police; Elizabeth is his wife. The number of inspectors on the Murder Squad have doubled in this past year and include Jimmy Tiffany, Michael Blacker, and Tom Wiggins. Sergeant Kett continues to act as liaison between the constables and inspectors. Sergeant Fawkes can stand in for him.
Dr Bernard Kingsley is the official forensics examiner for the Metropolitan Police, busily introducing scene of crime methods, and teaches at the University College Hospital. Fiona Kingsley, the doctor's daughter, is a brilliant artist who once worked for her father and now sketches witness descriptions for Scotland Yard, and she has been illustrating Claire's books. Catherine had been Fiona's mother; she died of consumption. There is an older sister, Beatrice, away at university.
Constable Colin Pringle had been murdered in The Yard, 1.
The Kartsphanomen are…
…a society of men from all levels of society dedicated to meting out justice…with eye-for-an-eye punishment along the way. The naive and hypocritical high judge takes too much into his own hands.
Jack the Ripper, a.k.a., Saucy Jack, is terrifying. Mr and very psychopathic Mrs Parker are a cold pair of fish...and assassins. There is some confusion as to if the missus is his daughter, his partner, and/or his lover. Hmmm, she can't be his daughter as he mentions early in the story that they played together as children.
Jim has an in with a puppet show. Potter-Pirbright is a valet at Carlyle's gentlemen's club.
The Cover and Title
The gray cover is a fog, a metaphysical reference to Claire and Walter, as they stumble through the mists, and may be Lost and Gone Forever. It's also a scene from within the story, of chairs scattered in the fog, a man's silhouette on the right. The title is at the top in a white ghostly serif font, a chalkline underlining each word. Below that, in black, is the series information. At the bottom is the author's name using the same white font as the title. Beneath that, in white, is an info blurb.
duparker's review against another edition
4.0
Good ending (so far?) to the series. There was a culmination to the stories to date, and the weaving together of characters and their plots worked well. I also liked that there was a darkness that stayed through the end.
cpalisa's review against another edition
4.0
This is a tough one to rate because I love this series and the main characters, so I was so happy to read a new one, BUT...I hated a lot of the stuff that happened in it. I am tired of the Jack character and didn't like the Parkers at all. Love Fiona, Clare, Nevil, Walter and Dr. Kingsley...Hatty was new and I liked her character. I settled on 4 stars because I packed it around with me everywhere and was super eager to see what happened next even though some of it made me mad!
fluffyturtle's review against another edition
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
lisa_mc's review against another edition
4.0
Inspector Walter Day arrived several years ago in “The Yard” on the trail of Jack the Ripper but finding plenty of other sordid killings to solve. At the end of the last installment, “The Harvest Man,” Day had gotten even closer to catching Jack, but then abruptly disappeared and hasn’t been seen for a year.
Of course, since Day is the hero of this series, he’s not dead - no spoiler here; it’s in the opening chapter of the book - and he manages to escape from his captor, Jack the Ripper himself. A year in captivity took its toll on Day’s mind in particular, as well as on his friends and family, who never stopped looking for him. But other things are afoot in gritty Victorian London, including the opening of a grand department store, the mysterious murders of well-placed men, and a pair of professional assassins summoned from abroad. These parallel threads in the story - some loose ends from the previous books and some new ones - come together by the end, but not without quite a bit of blood and gore. I don't want to give away any more here, but plenty of bad apples about translate into plenty of mayhem.
The series is fascinating from the viewpoint of historical detail and the development of modern police procedure, and the books have interesting plots and fast pacing. Enjoyment of “Lost and Gone Forever” doesn’t depend on having read the previous books in the series, but this is a series best read in order, and the latest book is a worthy addition to it.
Of course, since Day is the hero of this series, he’s not dead - no spoiler here; it’s in the opening chapter of the book - and he manages to escape from his captor, Jack the Ripper himself. A year in captivity took its toll on Day’s mind in particular, as well as on his friends and family, who never stopped looking for him. But other things are afoot in gritty Victorian London, including the opening of a grand department store, the mysterious murders of well-placed men, and a pair of professional assassins summoned from abroad. These parallel threads in the story - some loose ends from the previous books and some new ones - come together by the end, but not without quite a bit of blood and gore. I don't want to give away any more here, but plenty of bad apples about translate into plenty of mayhem.
The series is fascinating from the viewpoint of historical detail and the development of modern police procedure, and the books have interesting plots and fast pacing. Enjoyment of “Lost and Gone Forever” doesn’t depend on having read the previous books in the series, but this is a series best read in order, and the latest book is a worthy addition to it.