A review by zooloo1983
The Red Hand of Fury: A Pre-World War One Historical Mystery by R. N. Morris

4.0

Wow, I just want to talk about the beginning of the book! I had no idea where it was going or who the first patient would be and bam! The author just throws a curve ball straight off the bat! Jaw dropped!!! 

This is book four in the series of Silas Quinn, but you are fine as you don’t have to read the others to read this. It reads perfectly as a stand-alone novel. 

Silas is a famed detective, but he feels like he has not done anything to deserve the praise. He lets his two sergeants do the thinking and then decides one of their ideas to solve cases. 

They are in a bit of a lull when Inchball comes across a new story where a man has decided to strip all his clothes off and jump into a bear enclosure...well you can guess what happen! Silas and Macadam write it off as nothing to investigate. Then a man jumps off a bridge, known as Suicide bridge, again getting naked and jumping! Now their interest is peaked, what is going on..and now they begin to delve into the history but not before there is a third (near) victim...and this time its someone that one of them knows. 

This is not a book for the faint-hearted that is for sure. It is at times such a dark foreboding read. Some of the descriptive words that the author uses are so detailed I found myself cringing so much that I could see the scenes and smell the smells. Not always a good thing I am telling you!! Especially when we spend time in Coney Hatch asylum...

It was interesting to read about life pre-war, being set in 1914. Simple throwaway comments like hearses being cars instead of horse-drawn carriages, ‘because it is all the rage now,’ seem crazy but back then it was not. 

Silas is a complex and maybe even slightly crazy character. You are following him into a tunnel of discovery, especially when you learn some of his history at the beginning wondering where it will fit in, in the present. 

Always wondering can he be trusted.....