Bridie Devine is the finest female detective of her age – at least that’s what the blurb on the dust jacket of Things in Jars says. However, when we meet her, she’s trying to get over the failure of her previous case, so perhaps she’s not that great after all.
We never find out the full details, but we know it went wrong, and we know it’s left Bridie facing her next case with an increased determination to solve it.
However, the next case might be harder than she thinks – it involves the disappearance of a mysterious child with rumoured special abilities.
The special abilities are supernatural in nature and are presented as fact by the Victorian characters. They might be a bit hard for the reader to accept, but for the fact that we’ve already had to accept that Bridie is followed wherever she goes by the near-naked ghost of an Irish boxer – Ruby Doyle.
Kidd’s writing presents these quirks of nature through the eyes of Bridie in such an accepting way that we simply just move on without even blinking.
I’m not a massive fan of historical fiction, but Kidd’s writing is so evocative you can almost feel the smog of Victorian London circling around you as you’re reading, it throws you into the setting and it leaves you there, letting the story unfold around you.
A great read – I’m giving it 4 stars out of 5
You can get yourself a signed copy of Things in Jars by subscribing to the Literary Hardback bundle on bertsbooks.co.uk by Sunday 31st March or you can get 10% off any full price title – including Things in Jars – by using the code RAMBLING at the checkout.
Things in Jars is published in Hardback by Canongate on 4th April 2019
Ramblings of a(nother) Frustrated Writer 