A review by jmatkinson1
The Alchemist's Daughter by Mary Lawrence
3.0
London in the 1540s and Henry VIII is on the throne. The King has just dispatched his fifth wife and is courting his sixth. In the slums of Southwark people are scraping a living in the only ways they can. A merchant ship, The Cristofur, tries to dock but when the customs officials find dead bodies in the hold and the ship overrun with rats they place it in quarantine. Meanwhile a former muckraker Jolyn visits her friend Bianca in order to find relief from her pains. Bianca makes physics and rat poison so when Jolyn dies she becomes the prime suspect for murder. How is the death of Jolyn related to the Christofur, to the plague of rats currently growing in London and to the mysterious occupants of a former bawdy house?
The rats are a central motif in this story and the descriptions are very realistic and unpleasant. Beyond that though there is nothing to distinguish this book from the glut of mediocre historical mysteries. Bianca Goddard is a quirky enough protagonist and the characters are quite well described but the story didn't really engage. I was left asking to many questions about the holes in the plot. Having said that Lawrence has researched well and her sense of time and place is pretty good.
The rats are a central motif in this story and the descriptions are very realistic and unpleasant. Beyond that though there is nothing to distinguish this book from the glut of mediocre historical mysteries. Bianca Goddard is a quirky enough protagonist and the characters are quite well described but the story didn't really engage. I was left asking to many questions about the holes in the plot. Having said that Lawrence has researched well and her sense of time and place is pretty good.