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Original poster

Can you recommend a good Victorian Thriller?

54 replies

Matildathebrave · 30/11/2011 19:51

You know with lots of atmosphere and murders and fogy streets?

Trying to find the above with no luck!

OP posts:
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NormanTheForeman · 04/01/2012 23:47

I would also recommend anything by Wilkie Collins, but especially The Moonstone!

Oneofthechildlessones · 04/01/2012 23:44

Ooh, I have just downloaded Moonstone, and the dead secret and found fingersmith in a pile of books I was gifted on WBN'11 :) Looking forward to reading them - especially after finishing Wedlock (Non fiction book about Mary Eleanor Bowes) which is set in that period.

RunningWithScissors · 04/01/2012 15:38

I might join you Smile; PM me if you ever work it out...

Prolesworth · 04/01/2012 14:15

Oh that final sentence takes your breath away doesn't it? And makes you want to go back to the beginning and start again immediately. I didn't work it out either though: must be time to re-read :)

RunningWithScissors · 04/01/2012 11:45

Prolesworth, can I ask you if you understood the last sentence in the Quincunx? Absolutely loved it,and have read it twice, but still no clearer on that final sentence...

HelloShitty · 04/01/2012 11:42

Meaning of Night by Michael Cox has everything you want, including lots of London smog. A real twisty-turn yarn.

NanAstley · 04/01/2012 11:35

Arthur and George is brilliant Cote. I'm sure you'll love it.

Prolesworth · 04/01/2012 00:16

The Quincunx by Charles Palliser. Brilliant, gripping, huge.

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 22/12/2011 21:49

Arthur And George is great - you'll love it!

CoteDAzur · 21/12/2011 16:37

Arhur and George is the next book in our book club. Looking forward to reading that once I'm done with Reamde.

CoteDAzur · 21/12/2011 16:36

I was annoyed a bit by the end of Drood but then realized that it couldn't end any other way. Surely, the narrator's addiction & madness had to be the explanation of the creepy stuff going on.

Galaxymum · 12/12/2011 19:45

Wildthorn by Jane Eagland is excellent. It's a teenage historical psychological thriller fiction which is frankly spine tingling. A teenage girl is taken away and finds herself placed in a mental asylum where she is treated as insane. The historical research on women's place in society and mental asylums is excellent.

Well worth reading!

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 12/12/2011 17:08

I was irritated by Drood - it had promise and then just descended into stupidity imho. The Collins/Dickens period has clearly been well researched though.

Bump though because I now really fancy reading something like this and think I've read most of the ones suggested!

MistletoeAndPinot · 12/12/2011 14:59

.

CoteDAzur · 12/12/2011 07:51

Drood by Dan Simmons.

Greige · 03/12/2011 01:16

Another vote for The Woman In White and The Moonstone. Also Edgar Allen Poe (sad old goth here) Yes to Dickens (even a Dickens biography might suit - with debtors prisons, child labour, adultery etc etc)

If you want atmosphere then the Bronte sisters can't be beat - Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre - absolutely dripping in the stuff.

Sherlock Holmes, if you want late Victorian/Edwardian.

I can't really suggest any modern set-in-Victorian-times books, cos I've not read any that can match the real thing. I sometimes like watching slightly off-period (if you know what I mean) stuff, like The crimson Petal and the White, but can't read it. Mind, I tried watching the Sherlock Holmes remake with Robert Downey Jr - utter crock of... had me yelling at the screen!

BoulevardOfBrokenSleep · 02/12/2011 21:14

I found Suspicions of Mr Whicher a bit, well, plodding...? Didn't finish it. A factor in this might be that I find fictional child deaths v difficult now I'm a mum. Blush

Have just enjoyed Glass Books Of The Dream Eaters, which is very plot-driven. Ooh, turns out it has a funky website too

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 02/12/2011 21:03

And lots of people like 'Stone's Fall' by Ian Pears but I thought it was clunky, overlong and contrived tbh. It deffo has the period stuff down pat though.

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 02/12/2011 21:01

Also 'Arthur And George' by Julian Barnes - about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 02/12/2011 20:56

Ooh yes to Dorian Grey.

I don't like The Woman In Black but it's deffo the right sort of story for this time of year!

The first half of Mr Whicher is good but then I got v bored by it.

How about Philip Pullman's Sally Lockheart series? They are children's books but really exciting, with a strong female lead.

fothergill · 02/12/2011 20:53

ooh. edgar allen poe, not london streets with alleyways and bent coughing as such but definitely dark.

daveywarbeck · 02/12/2011 20:53

Bleak House by Charles Dickens. Not scary but there is a murder and plenty of fog. And it is a stonking good read.

tigerdriverII · 02/12/2011 20:51

Another one for American Boy, Andrew Taylor.

A bit later than Victorian but the books by (sp) Jed Rubenstein - the Murder Instinct and ? the Death instinct - good historical thrillers.

Also Wilkie Collins, just fab.

fothergill · 02/12/2011 20:48

wilkie. but not scary just evocatively written. My gifted copy of Dracula is as yet waiting to be opened but apparently, on trusted authority, will please me. I might go and read it tonight actually.

Booboostoo · 02/12/2011 20:47

It just has to be Wilkie Collins - either Woman in White or Moonstone as a 'first taste'!

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