This was another old pritn book from my shelves that I'm slowly going through and reading whatever catches my eye that I haven't read already. Set in 1885, the year that Grover Cleveland was sworn in as the 22nd President of the USA, the Cree massacre of settlers at Frog Lake too place, Gottlieb Daimler was granted a patent for the first motorcycle, 'Jumbo' the elephant died in the PT Barnum Circus train wreck, and Dr Pepper was served for the first time!
Louis Pasteur also successfully tested his rabies vaccine and it's a pity it could not have been used on this novel in which protagonist Beret Osmundsen travels to Denver, Colorado, where her younger sister has been murdered. Lillie worked in a house of ill-repute, and Beret is determined to see justice done, despite her disapproval of her sister's life. The book description has it that Beret's "investigation takes her from the dangerous, seedy underworld of Denver’s tenderloin to the highest levels of Denver society. Along the way Beret learns the depths of Lillie’s depravity and must reconcile these with her memories of the innocent young girl of their youth."
I don't knwo where my thought processes were at when I picked this up. I should have set it right back down having read that much, but it seemed at the time - I'm guessing! - to be a potentially interesting period novel. It was not. I made it through six tedious chapters and grew rapidly tired of the constant flashbacks. I want to follow events now! I don't honestly give a damn about the main characters' pasts. Now is what I'm interested in, even if 'now' is over a century ago. It's why I bought the book. If I'd wante done set in 1875 or whenever, I'd have bought that one instead!
The problem is that even had there been no flashbacks, I would still have ditched this, because neither of the two main characters was remotely appealing to me. Worse, I quickly grew to dislike them both: Beret and the lout of a police detective who she was working with. Given the way that character was drawn, I saw no reason why he would agree to let her be involved in the investigation, and she had nothing that appealed to me in terms of being an interesting person or a memorable character. Like I said, I DNF'd it and did not regret it because I was able to move on to a much more interesting book! I can't commend this. Instead, I condemn it.
