Charles Dickens becomes the prime suspect in a murder when he is seen standing over a dead body on a Manchester stage while holding a gun. Fortunately for Dickens, he has a prior relationship with Superintendent Jones and the two of them set out to find the real killer. The search takes Dickens and Jones through some of the seedier neighborhoods and Dickens will face threats to his life.

I definitely like the concept of Charles Dickens working with the local constabulary on solving crimes, and author J.C. Briggs seems to have a good historical knowledge of Dickens and his interests. Sometimes, however, this got in the way of the story as characters from Dickens' books sometimes showed up (or, rather, characters who were the inspiration for Dickens sometimes made an appearance). This had more of a flavor of Briggs trying to show how clever she was, rather than something important to the story.

The mystery itself was engaging enough, with a quite affable Charles Dickens leading the way (and of course it made perfect sense that he had the time to investigate). The character appearances was just distracting from the story (for me).

This is the third book in a series, and there were a few moments when I felt as though I was missing a piece of information because I hadn't read the previous books, but for the most part this stands alone as a story with a beginning, middle, and end.

Writing the speech patterns with the 'authentic,' phonetic spellings for the various accents was quite distracting. For instance (picked randomly):
<blockquote>’E wor waitin’ for yor so I let ’im come in out o’ the cowd – ’t’int fit for a dog out theer. ’E looked that starved, I give ’im a piece o’ me bread an’ cheese. Inspector let yor go then? I knowed yor ’adn’t don it, sir, but yon constable as came wi’ me was that keen t’arrest someone, he wouldn’t listen.’</blockquote>
I have a pace when I read - a pace that lets me enjoy what I'm reading. I'll slow down my pace for two reasons ... 1) I'm really enjoying something and I absolutely want to savor it, and 2) I'm struggling to understand something. This dialog is #2 ... I had to slow way down to really follow the dialog, and slowing down took me out of the story - the absolute opposite of what an author wants to do. Perhaps if I were British this would roll off the tongue a little easier for me?

Although the mystery surrounding the murder was interesting, the book struggled to keep me reading as the pace often dragged.

A great concept and a great character drawn from a recognizable historical figure, but the execution of the story didn't quite work.

Looking for a good book? Murder by Ghostlight by J.C. Briggs is a wonderful concept, with Charles Dickens investigating a crime he's accused of committing, but the story is a little too slow for a full recommendation.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

Murder by Ghostlight is a compelling mystery that takes Charles Dickens out of London to Manchester, where he is acting in a play. The action really picked up about a third of the way through when an assumption was revealed to be untrue, increasing the suspenseful plot dramatically. As always in this series, the Victorian setting is well-drawn.

I received an e-ARC of this novel through NetGalley and Trafalgar Square Publishing, The History Press. Thank you.

This third mystery in the Charles Dickens and Superintendent Jones series will please readers who enjoy a novel which places strong emphasis on both historical settings and the literature of Charles Dickens. Author J. C. Briggs has written impressively in the style I would have expected if this book had actually been written by Dickens. All kinds of elements of his life and his literary works appear throughout the novel and succeeded in placing me very firmly in the England of 1850. The first portion of the novel takes place in Manchester where descriptions of the industrial city read as if they came directly from the pen of Dickens. After the second performance of a play Dickens has acted in and sponsored he returns to the empty theatre to find a man seated in a chair on the stage which is lit by the ghostlight. The man is dead and Dickens soon finds himself taken into custody as the main suspect in the death. He can't help but wonder why he ever picked up that pistol.

Naturally it will help enormously in your enjoyment of this novel if you like the writings of Charles Dickens. The author has done a wonderful job of using the types of descriptions you would find in a Dickens novel to describe both Manchester and London as well as the people Dickens and Jones come across in solving this case. The mystery is also constructed in a way I can imagine Dickens using - sometimes taking the long way around in favor of dense prose when more basic, succinct wording probably would have done just as well. Some of this denseness caused the book to be a slow read for me; quite enjoyable, but slow nonetheless. I don't think I would want to read two of the books back to back, but that's just me.

1850 Manchester and Charles Dickens in on a stage holding a gun with a dead man nearby and thereby he becomes the prime suspect. With the help of Superintendent Jones of Bow Street they aim to find the real murderer.
The mystery was interesting enough (it just got the 3 stars). The story did drag at some points, with too much description, and I didn't like the dialogue in the vernacular as it stopped the flow of the story when I had to go back to make out what had been said.

This was a good murder mystery, with quite a few twists and turns. I did feel like it got a bit long-winded and the plot slowed through the middle of the book, but ultimately I enjoyed the ending. I think the characters were well developed, and I enjoyed the fact that the characters were all very different in their speech patterns and thought processes, and that there were some side plots with the characters that developed over the course of the book.
This is apparently third in a series, which needs to be noted somehow with the subtitling or series titling. I did not feel lost reading it though. There were some reference back to the previous books, but not anything to spoil them if you wanted to go back and read them.
The only thing that made me feel a little out of the loop was the continual references to Dickens's work and his characters. He often slipped into his own characters to say funny things to the other people in the story, or they referenced plots of his work. I am not a Dickens reader. I don't think I've ever read anything by Charles DIckens. It made it harder for me to tell at times when he was being sarcastic or joking, but it did not detract from the story. I actually felt like the author researched Dickens thoroughly and felt that I learned a bit about him as a historical figure from reading this book. If you are a Dickens fan, I definitely recommend this to you. If you enjoy fiction about real historical figures, this is definitely an enjoyable read.