Can you recommend a good Victorian Thriller?

[Matildathebrave]

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

Trying to find the above with no luck!

There's also the gruesome true story The Suspicions of Mr Whicher. Gripping.
How about Little Dorrit? Rigaud is very creepy.

The Steet Philosopher by Matthew Plampin was an excellent read.

'Alias Grace' is v good except for the silly ending imho. Much better than 'Fingersmith' though.

Another vote for Woman in White. - Wilkie Collins
Also Woman in Black. - Susan Hill
The picture of Dorian Grey. - Oscar Wilde
The strange case of Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde.
The Hound of the Baskervilles - Arthur Conan Doyle

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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!

Drood by Dan Simmons.

.

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!

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!

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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...