Book Review: The Agency: The Body at the Tower

Please pardon the copyright infringement, as I found it
necessary to include cover art in this review.

I picked up this book not realizing that it was somewhere (though I'm still not sure where--would it really have been too much effort for the publishers to put numbers on the damn books?) in Y.S. Lee's  The Agency series, so this review might not turn out as positive as it otherwise would, due to the fact that wasn't always sure what the heck was going on. The story centers around the life of a young detective, Mary Quinn, who works for a detective agency in Victorian London, kind of like a female Sherlock Holmes.

The Story: When a construction worker falls--or, perhaps, is pushed--from St. Steven's Tower, Mary Quinn, disguised as a laborer, is dispatched to investigate. But before long, she finds herself entangled in the mystery not only intellectually, but also personally.

The Good Stuff: The historical details. The author's descriptions are brilliant--portraying a thorough, all-senses-included view of the setting without interfering with the story itself. Reading this book is about as close to walking the streets of Victorian London as a modern person can get without a time machine.

The Bad Stuff: This didn't really feel like a mystery to me. The heroine spends more time thinking about her personal life than she does about the murder she's supposedly trying to solve, and she's never really in legitimate danger until the last ten pages or so. I also think I could have connected more with the characters. The point of view quite frequently shifted with no warning, and the supporting cast was so large that I had a hard time remembering which one was which. Keeping track of James, Jones, and Jenkins was hardly an easy task.

The Overall: In spite of how long the Bad Stuff list for this is, I rather liked it. I probably wouldn't recommend it for readers who don't have any particular interest in Victorian London, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that most of the readers of this blog do. I intend to read at least the first book in the series, once I figure out which one that is.