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”.
