Cover Image: Soot

Soot

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Member Reviews

Sadly, I was underwhelmed and confused from the first few pages. I could not, for the life of me, follow what the author, Andrew Martin, was trying to do. Other times when this happens, I reread the blurb and it helps to ground the narrative. In this instance, the blurb didn't help.
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Other writers have used the  trope of telling stories through letters and diary entries and honestly, have done it better. I'm also not sure of motivation or reason or, well, any of it.
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I don't think this is a bad book or that it's badly written, it simply doesn't work for me.

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Apologies for a very tardy review. I recall reading this while on vacation and planned to submit my review once I returned home. Then I realised I was due to see Andrew Martin speak at the Bloody Scotland festival so held off writing until such time as I had heard him - incase he referenced Soot during the panel. Needless to say I then forgot to pen a review and I only now realise my review remains outstanding.

Soot achieved something a little different from my usual crime reads in that I seldom review historical books. That said I enjoyed Soot much more than I had originally expected - once the story got flowing I found I was enjoying it more than I had realised.

The book suited my relaxed holiday mood - I found that the quiet time I had allowed me to engage more with the story and the characters and I very much enjoyed the depiction of the time and locations which added real depth to the reading experience. Great for a holiday distraction and fans of historical fiction will undoubtably get more from it that I did. Pleasant way to pass a few hours.

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Really enjoyable read. Good characters and a Good story. Well worth a read. Think others will enjoy.

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A new take on a tried and true genre. The plot itself wasn't particularly unique. There was nothing here that hasn't been done in historical crime thrillers 1000 times. Where this stood out though was the way it was approached. Epistolary style is so rarely employed in historical fiction, and it was interesting to see how Martin used it. The mix of styles worked to great effect and I must admit, I did enjoy it. Was it perfect? No. But it was certainly an interesting take on a genre that has of late grown a little stale.

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Soot is an intriguing historical crime fiction novel.

Fletcher Rigge is an impoverished sole, languishing in the debtors prison when he is called upon by Matthew Harvey's son.

Matthew Harvey is dead and his son thinks that Fletcher can help him.

Matthew Harvey was a renowned cutter and painter of shades, or silhouettes, the latest must have in the world of portraiture. When he is found murdered in his home by a pair of scissors, the immediate suspicion falls to whoever last sat for a portrait.

The only trouble is, that theory produces at least six suspects. Fletcher is no detective, but he knows that the silhouettes themselves must hold some clues. He only has one month in which to find the killer before he is locked up again.

Possibly for good this time....

As Fletcher begins his investigative journey he learns that those outside of the prison walls can be just as cunning and deceptive as those inside, and he must learn to decipher the good from the bad in order to reveal who murdered Matthew.

With the clock ticking against him, Fletcher must find the killer before they strike again...

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Soot had me hooked with its cover. Then the promise that a silhouette or shade artist had been discovered murdered and the culprit was one of his final six sitters but how to find a person when all you have is their profile. Add to that it is set in York at the very end of the eighteenth century and I was sold. A great cover does not always mean a great book but happily this time it does.

We start with the murder of Matthew Harvey, stabbed with the very scissors he used to cut his art works. Then we skip to the debtors prison in York Castle where Fletcher Rigge is languishing, his late father gambled away the family estate and the son is paying the price for his profligacy. As far as Fletcher is concerned, it is likely that he will spend his whole life in the gaol. One day a letter arrives from the murdered man's son offering to pay his debts if Fletcher can solve the mystery of Matthew Harvey's death. Now we set off into the snowy streets of wintery York.

Fletcher Rigge, an intelligent young man most particular about his appearance, manages to identify the six sitters. Now he must try to ascertain which one of them is the killer. As we meet each of the six, it seems that any and all of them could have been capable of the dastardly act. Meanwhile Fletcher is in love and keen to woo the object of his affections but the stain of the debtors prison hangs over him.

The story is told by means of letters looking back at the events of the novel, first person accounts and diaries. You skip around the voices but the narrative remains clear. Whether you are in the narrow lanes surrounding Fleet Street in London, or on a mail carriage or better still tramping the snow covered streets of York, you know exactly where you are and who is talking. Any book with a strong sense of place gets my vote, when that place is one that I know well, so much the better. My grandparents lived not far from York and its geography is engrained on childhood imagination, it was good to walk those streets again.

Soot is a great whodunnit, Fletcher Rigge our hero is an eccentric but engaging soul and snowy eighteenth century York is beautiful. The ending is satisfying but maybe not the one that you have thought would happen at the mid point of the novel.

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Fletcher Rigge is in debtors prison in York. His father gambled away his estates and then committed suicide, Fletcher is clever but without money or support. Then a mysterious proposition is made. Fletcher will be released from gaol, his debts paid for one month, he must solve a murder and if he does so his debts will disappear forever. This benefactor is Captain Harvey son of the late victim, an artist who specialised in silhouettes, or shades as they are known. Fletcher realises that the clues to the orders identity lie in the last set of shades that Harvey created and so he is thrown into society in York and latterly London.

This is a clever book, written in the form of different notes or papers and with a number of different narrators. All of this means that the plot is not quite as clear cut as it could have been with a more straightforward single narrator. However, this is to the book's benefit, as one of the strengths is the complexity of the plot and the way that no single narrator is completely truthful, different perspectives of the same events are interpreted in different ways. In this way the metaphor about shades continues through the story. I loved the descriptions of life in Georgian York and the little details about the different characters added such a depth to the novel.

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I have to admit I didn't really understand this book. Although the idea is good (murder, intrigue, excitement), it came across as a little slower than I would have liked

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Told entirely through written reports - diary entries, letters, memoranda and notes, Soot cleverly uses the epistolary form, utilising different voices and occasionally unreliable narration to explain how Fletcher Rigge finds himself charged with investigating the murder of Matthew Hardy, and what his investigation reveals.
There's a real authenticity about the proceedings, it felt less like a book set in 1799 than a collection of documents written at the time. From the colloquial, witty and occasionally bawdy diary entries through to the more formal exchange of letters to the legal postscripts; the different voices of the chapters are distinctive and believable. The city of York, just starting to become industrialised is brought atmospherically to life; the almost constant snowfall a contrast to the grime of the early coal trade already resulting in a 'befoulment of the air.' The soot of the title refers not only to the coal sold by the deceased man's son, Captain Robin Harvey but also to the shades, or silhouettes the dead man was renowned for before his untimely demise. There are few clues as to the identity of his murderer but it seems the perpetrator must have been one of the last six people to sit for one of his shades.
Fletcher Rigge's diary entries, backed up by the reports of others, show him to be a serious, principled man, given to melancholy and guilty perhaps of a stubborn nostalgia. He is sent to debtor's prison following the suicide of his father who lost his entire estate through gambling. Determined to honour his father's commitments to his estate Rigge's sizeable debt was accrued due to the expense of repairing some of the labourer's cottages. He is freed from his debt by Captain Hardy but only if he can discover the identity of the killer within the month. A clever man, he is soon able to identify the six key suspects and it's here Andrew Martin really had fun with his characters, each vie for most colourful and while all have something of the grotesque about them - these are ordinary people with their flaws and idiosyncrasies writ large - each is written about with a certain affection, Andrew Martin is sharp but not cruel about his cast.
Although the droll characterisation and black humour are the most memorable features, it is also an intriguing and cleverly plotted mystery, the truth is gradually revealed and the blackness of the silhouettes is matched by the souls of certain participants. What a pleasure it was to read Soot with its fresh take on the classic murder mystery tale, I really enjoyed this intelligent and spirited book and recommend it to both crime and historical fiction lovers.
My thanks to the publishers for my copy, received through Netgalley in return for my honest review.

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Thanks Little, Brown Book Group UK and netgalley for this ARC.

Soot will blow you away with the sheer wonderfulness of it. This a mystery for the mystery lover. I cant wait to read Martin's next one.

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I’d like to start this review by saying – Mr Rigge is a wonderful character and I loved his humour. In fact, this novel has very interesting characters indeed. On Rigge’s journey to discover who the people behind the shade paintings are, he travels from York to London, from the theatre to seedy gaming dens – it all made for enjoyable reading.

There’s no straight forward narrative here, several different documents from several of the characters tells this story – diary entries, letters and memorandums, to name a few – these documents have been put together by Mr Erskine, a lawyer, who is sending them to the Chief Magistrate of York. A few times in the novel, we are given a document, Mr Erskine then briefly comments that he will not share the other document by a different person as they say a similar thing. This tactic creates unreliable narration as, without both accounts, you’re not entirely sure what to believe.

In all honestly, I struggled with this book, I was able to follow the story but I think I missed certain things – I say that because, on reading other reviews for this title, I wonder if I read the same book because it appears I missed so much. This book is set in 18th century England and the language reflects that time period so to enjoy this novel, you must get on board with that fact – I read this book on my kindle and there were a few times I used the dictionary assistance to find the meaning of words. This didn’t hinder my enjoyment, most times you can infer the meaning of the words from the context in which they’re used, but I just wanted to make certain. I mention this because while Martin used this language in a way that created a delightfully dark atmosphere, it, along with the formatting of the story, may have been the cause of me not fully grasping all that occurred in the novel.

This is not a criticism in anyway, more the novel was too cleverly structured for my basic brain. Regardless, what I took from this novel, I enjoyed – especially the dark humour and the character of Mr Fletcher Rigge.

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You know when you can tell as soon as you start reading that you’re going to enjoy a book? That’s how I felt about Soot, Andrew Martin’s new historical mystery set in 18th century York. The plot, the characters, the atmosphere, the writing style…I loved them all!

Let’s start with the plot, then. In August 1798, Matthew Harvey, a painter of silhouettes, is found dead – stabbed with his own scissors – in his house in Coney Street, York. Assuming that suicide can be ruled out, the only suspects are the six sitters who visited him during the previous week. The problem is, the page on which Harvey recorded their names has been torn out of his ledger, so that the only remaining clues are Harvey’s private duplicates of the silhouettes – or ‘shades’, as they are known.

Fletcher Rigge, a young gentleman who has found himself in financial difficulties, has spent three months in debtors’ prison in York Castle when he is approached by Captain Harvey, the silhouette-maker’s son. The Captain makes him an offer he can’t refuse: he will arrange Rigge’s release from prison, on the condition that Rigge can identify the people in the shades and help to track down the murderer. Rigge has previously used his detection skills to locate a missing book while working at Skelton’s Bookshop – this is what brought him to the Captain’s attention – but finding a killer could prove to be somewhat more difficult than finding a book…

As Rigge attempts to trace the people in the silhouettes, his search brings him into contact with a variety of colourful characters, including the clever and resourceful Maria Sampson, the temperamental young actor Jeremiah Smith – and my favourite, the London-based author Samuel Gowers, a proud, pompous man with an unfortunately large nose which lends itself to some comic scenes à la Cyrano de Bergerac. Rigge himself is another intriguing character, described at the beginning as having ‘a lowness of spirits, offset by a mordant wit and a prideful obstinacy’. Due to the structure of the book (more on that shortly) I was never quite sure exactly how reliable his narration was, but I did end up liking him and enjoyed accompanying him on his travels around York and beyond.

Georgian York provides a wonderfully atmospheric setting for the novel, particularly when covered in a blanket of snow (Rigge’s investigations take place in winter). From the slums of First Water Lane, home to Captain Harvey, to the Theatre Royal, the Black Swan coaching inn and the elegant townhouse belonging to one of the suspects, everything is vividly described. The language used in the book is appropriate for the 18th century too; I could tell the author had taken a lot of care to try to choose the right words and turns of phrase. This is particularly important because the book is presented as a collection of authentic documents gathered together by attorney-at-law Mr Erskine and sent to the Chief Magistrate of York.

Most of the novel is in the form of extracts taken from Fletcher Rigge’s own diary, but there are also diary entries written by Captain Harvey’s mistress Esther, newpaper reports, interviews with witnesses conducted by Erskine’s clerk, Mr Bright, and commentary from Erskine himself. Andrew Martin uses this structure very effectively to keep the reader guessing and wondering which accounts are reliable and which are not. The solution to the mystery is certainly not as black and white as Matthew Harvey’s shades!

Soot is a great book. At first Fletcher Rigge’s story reminded me of Thomas Hawkins’ in The Devil in the Marshalsea, but it quickly developed into something different and I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it. Now I’m hoping for a sequel!

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Set in York at the end of the eighteenth century, Soot features an unlikely amateur sleuth in Fletcher Rigge. Plucked from the debtor's prison by a questionable benefactor from the wrong part of town, he's given a month to investigate the murder of Captain Harvey's father, one of York's silhouette artists. The suspects are his last sitters, with only their duplicate shades to identify them.

The art of the silhouette maker appears to capture the essence of each character and it's illuminating how much Fletcher Rigge is able to take from these deceptively simple shades of people. They represent the impression we leave behind and it's for Rigge to fill in the detail, as he attempts to identify each sitter inside a month. In this, Rigge is the happy beneficiary of coincidence while pursuing his investigations but I can forgive him that in a York of this period. He also shows scant regard for his own safety or wellbeing. Maybe he thinks he has little left to lose, despite being drawn into a dangerous game where a murderer is still at large. Will Rigge prove to be a willing pawn or more skilled and capable of outwitting practised confidence artists and other undesirables than we expect? And why does he seem set on undoing all the good work he and others are doing on his behalf?

Soot held my attention from its first page when Mr Erskine, a lawyer, sends the York magistrate a bundle of documents concerning the violent death of Matthew Harvey. I tumbled headlong into the (rather aptly) shadowy world of this city at the close of the eighteenth century. Reading this collection of letters, diary entries and witness statements (complete with the lawyer's annotations), the lawyer in me loved trying to piece together this whodunit/whydunit from all the material provided.

If you enjoy puzzles, you'll love this literary jigsaw of a mystery with characters as fascinating and fluid as Rigge's roaming over the snowy northern city. Just as ink and soot smudge and snow soon turns to sludge, part of the fun of Soot is how nothing is ever black or white: the lines between good and bad blur and fudge and its people are neither one thing nor the other. What they are throughout is darkly amusing and interesting companions. Here's the grieving son on his father's search for the right shade:

"He was always looking for what he called a dead black," said Captain Harvey, smiling sardonically. "I reckon he's found it now."

I thoroughly enjoyed my time in the shadows, smudged in Soot; it’s historical crime with a difference, laced with dark humour and told with flair. I’ll miss its unusual and unlikely but likeable protagonist Fletcher Rigge and hope we meet again in the ink-tipped pages of another book. In the meantime, treat yourself to the gorgeous hardback of this beauty… before the lawyers get their hands on it, too.

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"The murder of Matthew Harvey, painter of shades, had been much discussed in the city."

I was really excited to read Soot by Andrew Martin, a Georgian (I think) murder in atmospheric York. It's an original murder mystery, which is refreshing in this genre, which is both atmospheric and funny.

As soon as I read the blurb I knew I wanted to read Soot, I love murder mysteries and I love historical fiction, so this one crossed both genres. I was also intrigued by the original details; a shade printer and debtors prison, adding in something a little bit different to the usual glut of crime fiction.

Martin manages to make this book very atmospheric, you can imagine being in the dark and snowy streets of York and it creates the perfect background to a murder.

Soot is told in extracts from diaries, letters and newspapers. While this isn't anything new it does heighten the sense of mystery and investigation which makes this book read as the piecing together of a puzzle.

Martin is also good at creating interesting characters with depth, including the supporting characters. All the suspects in the mystery are interesting and not just two dimensional.

The main character Fletcher Rigge is intriguing. I like how his personality is slowly revealed through other character's opinions and dealings with him, and his own diary entries. He's a slightly naive but kindhearted ex-Aristocrat who clearly harbours some dark issues beneath his dandified surface.

There are lots of excellent elements in the book, like the setting and characters, and I did enjoy reading Soot but I felt like it never quite got going properly. It starts well with Rigge being hired to find a murderer using just the 'shades' of suspects, but I think the momentum fizzled out a little in the last half. There were also a few too many lucky coincidences with Fletcher pretty much just bumping into potential suspects at some points.

It's a bit of a let down because this book has so many good things going for it. But it's still enjoyable and something a bit different. I'm intrigued to read more of Martin's work.

My Rating: 3.5/5 (rounded up to 4 for Goodreads etc)

I received a copy of Soot via NetGalley in return for an honest review. My thanks to the author and publisher.

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Really enjoyed this book and the way it was set out. It was such an interesting way to read a book, with excerpts and diary entries from different characters. It does leave it on a bit of a cliff hanger so I do hope a second book will follow or even a short piece? A well-written and intriguing piece!

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This book looked and sounded right up my street but sadly it was quite disappointing! I read it while I was full of a cold and a throat infection so I read it in a day which is one positive point for the book as well as the gorgeous cover!

The story is set in York which I adored as I recently visited York so it was weird but interesting to read about streets and places that I visited recently. It's a mishmash of a historical fiction, murder mystery and a slight meandering romance; it follows the aftermath of Mathew Harvey's murder and the mystery of who killed him as well as the lives of the the people around him and the person charged with finding the killer, Fletcher Rigge.

I adored the setting of York, I love the cover and how quick to was to read but I didn't connect to any of the characters, The main character was quite one dimensional, I found the mystery interesting but very drawn out and I didn't like the tangents or the romance. I think the premise was so interesting and unique but it could have been SO much better!

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This is a beautifully pieced together puzzle 0f historical fiction by Andrew Martin set in 1799 in York, a city of around twenty thousand people, in a period of flux where there is much movement from rural areas, where livelihoods are foundering, to the city. An artist, Matthew Harvey, has been discovered murdered by sharp scissors used to stab, tools of his profession as a cutter and painter of shade/silhouettes portraiture, which is currently in vogue. It becomes apparent that the murderer must have been one of the last six sitters for the artist, it is not immediately apparent who they are, there are only the shades left to identify them. The narrative is primarily delivered through the medium of letters, journal entries and memorandum.

A once distinguished gentleman, Fletcher Rigge, finds himself in debtors prison after his father gambled away the family estate and Fletcher, a good man, insisted on doing up the workers abodes. He is a literary man, much given to writing, who had worked at Skelton's book shop. He is rescued from his current predicament for a month by Captain Robin Harvey, the son of the artist, who wants him to find his father's six clients and the murderer. If he fails, he will return to the prison. Rigge immerses himself in the mystery and slowly the shade sitters are identified. One is a
volatile London writer, a member of the Black Diamonds, who despises Samuel Johnson. Rigge becomes a tutor to uncover a mother and her chaotic daughters. Another is a violent actor who takes umbrage on not being given leading roles. However, there is the issue of what Captain Harvey, a man with a nefarious history, wants to do with Rigge's information. Amidst the investigation, we become aware of the romantic feelings Rigge has for Miss Lucy Spink, an affair apparently doomed by Rigge's dire financial circumstances and the likelihood he will return to prison.

This is a sparkling novel with a diverse range of characters that captivate, often for their villainy as for their good qualities. Fletcher Rigge is a fascinating central character, a man who seems determined to act against his personal interests. He uncovers secrets, and takes on dangerous men without a thought to his own safety. I hope the author plans to write further on Fletcher Rigge. The author gives us a real feel of the period, the people and the city of York. An enjoyable and entertaining read which I highly recommend. Many thanks to Little, Brown for an ARC.

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