Jackaby

When it comes to Urban fantasy, and books set in the 1800's I must admit that I am somewhat a sucker for them. I really enjoyed the Infernal Devices Series by Cassandra Clare, and I have been itching for something similar ever since. However, it was too much like Sherlock Holmes for me to really find anything to recommend about this first installment of a series.

Firstly, let me discuss the main character, Abigail Rook. She is our main character, and often the one who comments on a scene for us, as she encounters Jackaby and the world at large. I found her an okay main lead. She was good enough to lead us through the story, but offered little else to it.

The author did tend to put us on the wrong foot early on when he said that Rook had ditched her schooling and taken to going on vacation all around the world, with very little word to her parents about what she was doing. This made me scratch my head in wonderment, since I could not help but ask why she would cause her parents so much distress. We find out that it is nothing more than the stereotypical for this type of heroine: her mother made her dress in frilly clothes suitable to the time period, and her father did not let her do what she wanted. This I feel was a bit of a misstep for me. Once again, we have an author who took the typical notions of the day, and turned them into something that only a modern reader would find acceptable. For starters, yes women had to wear clothing that, by modern standards, one would find silly and constricting. However, this was the social norm. And yes, women were only allowed to do what was called ‘women's work' and do things for the home. This was because that men were thought to not be able to work on caring for the home effectively, and that they were not able to exist, estate wise, without a wife to run it. I'm not saying that it is fair, but I just seems to be so stereotypical for authors to take notions of the time period, and change them to suit an audience without properly explaining why the culture is this way. Normally, I would not comment on it, but here, because Miss Rook was so bland, that is almost all I noticed about her.

Now we get to the elephant in the room: Jackaby. From what I have read, you either love him or hate him, based on how much you like Sherlock Holmes. For me, I just did not like him. I thought he was trying to hard to be Sherlock Holmes, when there is only one indeed. He seems like such another iteration of the famous detective that I find him difficult to think about one way or another. The mystery itself was...fine. The world building was also...fine. Everything was just...fine when it came to this book. That means I am probably forget this book in a month or two, and so I give it a two out of five. If you are looking for a fun urban fantasy detective story, starting reading the Dresden Files which, unlike this book, won't disappoint.