The Carnival Murders by Irina Shapiro

 

There are murder stories that are factual and then there are murder stories with atmospheric backgrounds, complicated characters from varying backgrounds which add so much depth to the story. Ms. Shapiro’s stories are like that. From the first to the last you are swept into Gemma’s and Sebastian’s lives.

Gemma and Detective Sebastian hope to get married as soon as possible. Colin not able to release Gemma from her nursing duties has been a frustrating obstacle to them but now with a date set both of them feel they are moving forward to a joyful period from the very hard and harsh realities they’ve lived through.

With the discovery of a young woman’s body found autopsied and followed by others they know they are looking out for a cold blooded surgeon killer. The killer seems to be fixated on human beings with disabilities and once the investigation starts several hitherto unknown cases keep getting mentioned. The fact that they were poor, disabled and had no family looking out for them, may be one of the reasons the killer did not get any attention. The first body discovered by Gemma and Sebastian was the anomaly. A normal young woman pregnant with her first child.

Apart from the detective work pursuing the killer and knowing that he would have the patronage of a higher class in society made their job harder. What added to the interest was how the background of the victims was woven into the story, sad though those backgrounds were. The inhumane treatment of anyone who was physically different during Victorian times was horrible. And there was no recourse for the victims. There was no social justice at all. The power of birth and money was paramount.

Connecting the victims from the conjoined twins to the dwarf murdered to Tamzin was hard but they got to the villain in the end

Not an easy read but it was a compulsive one.

Sent by Storm Publishing for an unbiased review, courtesy of Netgalley.