Things in Jars - Compelling

Set in Victorian London, Things in Jars tells the tale of Bridie Devine, a brilliant female detective who is on the hunt for a missing child. Bridie is not feeling her confident best in the wake of a previous child abduction case where she (and the police) failed to rescue the victims in time. So it is with some trepidation that she sets her sights on finding Christabel, the daughter of a well-to-do family, who has been kept away from prying eyes her whole life. The evidence starts to point to Christabel being a most unusual child - a merrow (a creature not a million miles away from a mermaid). This leads Bridie to wonder whether she has been taken by those wishing to dissect her for scientific purposes, or perhaps display her for profit in a circus. Over the course of the investigation, we hear about Bridie's own past, which is far from normal, and revel in her relationship with Ruby, who is the ghost of a boxer, recently deceased. Full of vivid descriptions of the murkier side of London and the people who inhabit it, together with a fair dose of folklore and the supernatural make Things In Jars a very entertaining story.  In addition, you cannot help but root for what feels like a burgeoning romance between Bridie and Ruby - then again, with Bridie's individual taste for unusual concoctions to smoke in her pipe, how much of this is real and how much imagined is left to the reader to decide. Like any good detective novel, there are twists, turns, red herrings and some great "baddies".  There's also plenty of humour and fun dialogue. Personally, I feel a couple of sections about the merrow folklore dragged a little, but apart from that, I thoroughly enjoyed it, especially the excellent narration of Jacqueline Miller, who brought vim and vigour to all the characters. This is the second book I have read by Jess Kidd (I read Himself last year), and she is definitely an author I will be seeking out for future tomes.

My STAR rating: FOUR.

Length: 416 print pages.
Price I paid: FREE, as part of 30-day free trial on Audible.
Formats available: print, audio download, audio CD, ebook.