Saturday, April 21, 2012

Mystery of the Hansom cab

I have just listened to The Mystery of a Hansom Cab by Fergus Hume. This was a famous Victorian novel that apparently inspired Conan Doyle to write about Sherlock Holmes -- although he was not so impressed by the novel.

I don't want to give away the plot -- but someone is murdered in a cab.

These Victorian crime novels always seem very complicated. Everyone worries about their reputation.
After reading the wikipedia entry about it, I see that the Victorian readers liked that the story involved both the poor and wealthy. This seems normal to me.

I think the detective in the story was treated poorly, because although he solved the crime and was competent, he was made to look vain.