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Book Review – Inspector Minahan Makes a Stand
by Bridget O’Donnell (Picador) ISBN 9780330544641
The title led me to think I was about to discover another fictional hero detective. Instead I was pulled into a fascinating historical account. It tells how the courage of one man was a catalyst for the 1885 turning point in a Victorian revolution that saw the rising middle class wrest influence from the aristocracy.
Inspector Minahan’s report about the corruption at his station, including the blind eye turned to Mrs Jeffries’ brothels where underage girls are offered to the nobility, leads to his demotion and resignation. He takes the issue to Home Secretary, Sir William Harcourt, who turns out to be his nemesis. His fight crests a wave of developments that leads to the change of the age of consent from thirteen to sixteen. It was scary to read how themes of the 1880s like child trafficking, beliefs that sex with virgins cures disease, arrogance of a privileged class and poverty breeding crime are still alive today.
Bridget O’Donnell’s story is thoroughly researched. Her writing is fast paced and entertaining. I liked her references to authors like Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson showing how much they were chroniclers of that time. Inspector Minahan did not get a happy ending like our present day fictional detectives but I think he was more heroic than most of them.
Josine Overdevest
4/5
Posted on: 20th February 2013
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1 thought on “Book Review – Inspector Minahan Makes a Stand”
*hugs* I can’t really let go of it eitehr HE. However, I’m going to be brave and come out and say it. LOL. I think Bill could be is King, though I still don’t think QSA is dead. Gaaaah!!! The AVL and the Authority, whatever their grudge, are not in the assassination business, and they have no justifiable reason to kill her. They could want justice of course, but SophieAnn is not a public or political menace like Russell, she is a blight in reputation of vampires as she doesn’t pay her taxes and of course a disgrace in selling V. I’m pretty convinced that the Spaceballs will hand QSA over to the IRS, she can go to jail for her taxes now, and then she can pay her time later for the V, which should lead up to a trial a la Rhodes. (AB can’t scratch all the plot from the books I don’t think. I mean, I really don’t think he’ll do that. lol.). *deep breathes.*Bill better enjoy the possibility of being King this season, because I’m positive it won’t stay that way. He’s eitehr going to die or royally fuck it up so bad that the AVL will force him to step down. Its probably in their best interests to have a puppet king in Louisiana in the current political atmosphere like Legalease said, and once they think they can’t control him he will be axed in one way or another.This could also be a reason why RealEric is so insistent on claiming Sookie, not that King Bill (OMG I think I just puked on my shoes) couldn’t claim her, since Eric said in season 2 he could take her if he wanted but that it would probably cause ruffles to take a Sheriff’s human, which would be unlike a Sheriff snaffling a human from a common vampire like Bill previously. I need a really stiff drink. 0 likes
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