A Vengeful Longing

It’s 1868 in St. Petersburg.  It’s  hot, dusty, and it stinks to high heaven from the sewage dumped into the canal as inspector Porfiry Petrovich tries to unravel a series of unrelated murders in R.N. Moriss’s second St. Petersburg Mystery.

In each murder, the guilty party is obvious:  A doctor gives his wife and son a box of poisoned chocolates;  an accused seducer is found shot with his accuser standing over him with a smoking gun, and a beggar argues with a neighbor and is knifed to death the next day.

In true Sherlock Holmes style, Petrovich picks up on obscure clues that point to the true killer.

A good historical fiction with nice atmosphere and plot twists.  Petrovich and rookie detective Pavel Virginsky are interesting characters but I would like to see deeper character development.  The St. Petersburg mytersy is entitled “The Gentle Ax”.