The Mannequin House is the second book in R.N. Morris’ fast-paced and thrilling Detective Silas Quinn Mystery series set in 1914 London.
Title: The Mannequin House
Author: R.N. Morris
Series: Detective Silas Quinn Mystery #2
First Published: May 25, 2020
Publisher: Canelo
Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery,
Acquired: from the author
*** Thank you to the author, R.N. Morris, and the publisher, Canelo, for providing me with an e-copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. ***
In this intriguing historical mystery, Detective Inspector Silas Quinn investigates one of the strangest cases of his career …
London, 1914. Called out to investigate the murder of a fashion model employed by the House of Blackley, a prestigious Kensington department store, Detective Inspector Silas Quinn of Scotland Yard’s Special Crimes Department is thrown into the bizarre: the chief murder suspect is a monkey. He may be sceptical, but how will Quinn ever get to the truth when faced with the maelstrom of seething jealousy, resentment, forbidden desires and thwarted passion that is the Mannequin House?
A gritting and engaging historical mystery thriller
This was a completely new-to-me series – I haven’t read anything by this author before – so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I opened The Mannequin House for the first time. The only thing I really knew going into this was that it was a ‘historical mystery’ set in London. I had agreed to review this book because the short book description had caught my interest, but other than that I was going in without any other expectations or hype. I am always a bit concerned about starting with the second book in the series, but The Mannequin House reads find as a standalone.
The action sets off when one of the mannequins (a clothing model) for the large department store, House of Blackley, is found murdered in a locked room in the “mannequin house”, the boarding house for all the Blackley models. Not only was the room locked, but the only thing alive inside is a loud, boisterous monkey. There are plenty of lies, half-truths and hidden motives throughout the story.
From the very first page, I was caught. I could not put this book down and ended up staying up late to finish it in less than two days. My word, this book just took my breath away. It’s a bit rough and tumble – definitely NOT in the same field as the cozy mysteries I’m used to. It’s utterly gripping and moves along at a very solid pace. Just when I thought I had things figured out, the story would take a sharp turn and I would have to work to catch up again.
Perfectly imperfect characters
One aspect that I found particularly interesting was how I reacted to the characters. Usually, there are always the characters that I relate to, or that I feel empathy with or sympathy for. There are the characters that I root for. The instant ‘good guys’. Almost all the characters in this story are unsympathetic people. By that I mean… well, they weren’t nice people. I wouldn’t want to be friends with any of them. I wouldn’t want to have tea with any of them. Heck, I probably wouldn’t want to spend 5 minutes making small talk with most of them! But they were so darn interesting that I couldn’t look away. I absolutely needed to find out what happened.
Silas Quinn is not your typical protagonist. Actually, there’s quite a bit wrong with him. In fact, when we first start the book, he’s being reprimanded for ‘accidentally’ killing a suspect during the course of an investigation, something he doesn’t seem to feel any remorse about. Throughout the book, we get a feeling that there is something very dark and painful in Quinn’s recent past. I’m now wondering if this is already explained in the first book in the series – if it was, I don’t think not knowing diminished this plot in any way, it just added to the mystery of Quinn’s character. It really made the historical fiction aspect of the book ring more solidly – there is no sugar-coating the fact that London in the 1900s was rough (unless you lived in Downtown Abbey) and this book makes that era come alive.
Aside from Silas, ‘flawed’ is a good way to describe almost all the other characters in the book – sometimes it was hard to distinguish between the good guys and the bad guys and that’s what made this story so intriguing. When one rough character seems to be there just to be the ‘muscle’, he goes and shows a surprisingly gentle side when interrogating a vulnerable young woman. When I assumed there would be a more sinister side to another character, he turns out to be completely benign. Nothing is as it seems and that kept me on the edge of my seat throughout the entire book. It reminded me of the TV show Ripper Street – with its conflicted police force, gritty London depiction and thrilling adventures.
This is the second book in the Detective Silas Quinn series by R.N Morris and after reading this absolutely thrilling historical mystery, I can’t wait to go back and read the first one, and then continue on with the rest of the series. I believe there are currently six books in total in the series so I have a lot of catching up to do!
Read The Mannequin House for yourself
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