Edinburgh, 1886. Two brutal murders and a bizarre exhumation have the city on edge, and conceited inspector Carus Groves is assigned the case. Baffled by the evidence of superhuman strength, Groves focuses on an anguished young woman, Evelyn Todd, who claims to have dreamed of the crimes.

Meanwhile, Thomas McKnight, a jaded Professor of Logic and Metaphysics, and Joseph Canavan, a compassionate cemetery attendant, are similarly drawn towards Evelyn. They discover her extraordinary imagination was violently suppressed in childhood, but her dreams retain the image of the lamplighter who brightened the street outside her orphanage. Evelyn now insists the killer is the lamplighter. And as a strange beast gallops through Edinburgh's misty alleys, and Grove's investigation flounders, McKnight and Canavan use the only weapons they possess - reason, logic, intuition, philosophy and sheer luck - to unearth the secrets buried in the dark recesses of Evelyn's mind...


2003, 310 pages, softcover

O'Neill has exceptional skills at descriptive writing and this gothic tale is full of period detail offering a vivid portrait of life in late Victorian Edinburgh. There is also a bit of social criticism, for the mystery evolves from young Evelyn’s brutal mistreatment at an orphanage. Evelyn is then cast out of the orphanage and sacrificed to a shadowy figure claiming to be her long-lost father. With nowhere else to go, Evelyn naturally says good-bye to the only life she's ever known, even as she may have chosen a fate much, much worse than she'd ever imagined.

Some 20 years later Evelyn returns to Edinburgh, at the same time when the city is terrorized by extremely brutal murders. The evolving story and most of all the wonderful athmosphere the writer is able to create, really REALLY gripped me. The story starts with creating the athmosphere before picking up pace and finally ending in bizarre and fantastical way but somehow horribly it makes sense anyway when all of the hanging threads are weaven together.

I guess it could be said that this whole story goes through metamorphosis starting from a slowly building serial-killer tale into something much more compelling, delving deeply into logic, the existence of humankind and ruminations on ideas espoused by such philosophers as René Descartes. I can't be sure of course but I think quite a lot would've been left not understud without the able to follow all philosophical flights of fancy and at its best this could be very thought-provoking read and intellectually challenging. BUT, this book seems to have two "layers", one more entertaining and the other thought-provoking and I think this is a good book no matter whether you read only one layer or both.

RELEASE NOTES:

I'll leave the book somewhere in the small hall, near the guestbook or on the table where are free brochures about Tampere.

This is also one of my releases for Leap Into the Wild 366 challenge.

Yesterday sure was a good day for BC hunting. First I came across Force Majeure at the main library—while routinely eyeing through the book trading shelf and never expecting to see a BC book there. The next thing I know, I'm on my way past the Pyynikki observation tower and I remember receiving a release alert for this one. That's two catches within half an hour :-)

RELEASE NOTES:

Aulasta kesälukemista mukaan.

Happy reading!

PS. Jos et ole aikaisemmin tutustunut BookCrossingiin ja englanninkielinen sivusto tuntuu hankalalta lähestyä, niin seuraavat linkit ovat avuksesi.

* Bookcrossingista suomeksi: http://bookcrossingfinland.net/wiki/
* Suomenkielinen keskustelufoorumi: http://www.bookcrossing.com/forum/30

The book was okay :D

CAUGHT IN LAPPEENRANTA FINLAND

and i forgot to mention that I'll leave it somewhere in Sitges, Barcelona, Spain ;)

CAUGHT IN LAPPEENRANTA FINLAND