As you already know from the five stars, I really enjoyed this book. While perhaps not portraying the complexity of “A Hunt by Moonlight,” the first in the series, it’s a real page-turner. Great characters, a complex plot, a difficult crime to solve and many levels of conflict all combine to keep the reader’s interest constantly renewed.
It’s also nice to see the personality of the main character of a series grow and change, as Royston’s attitude improves towards the upper classes and towards the family he has rejected.
If you want to get picky, this series is highly derivative of the Thomas Pitt and William Monk books by Anne Perry. However, the werewolf theme adds a deeper meaning to the standard plotline as a thinly disguised metaphor for the problems of the LGBT community.
As often happens with the second book of a series, some of the interesting original conflicts between the main characters got smoothed out in the conclusion of Book 1. Reppert solves this through the interesting differences in character and in the generic characteristics of the two “races,” which result in different ways of proceeding with an investigation. It’s bad enough when one of the partners in the crime-fighting duo is a methodical, reverse-snob professional while his sidekick is an impulsive upper-class amateur. Add in a full moon, and the human-werewolf disparity increases tenfold.
Highly recommended for fans of Victorian detective novels and fans of all sorts of supernatural fantasy.
(5 / 5)