Poor Tom Is Cold

To start, a confession: I only discovered Murdoch through the television show, and am now starting in on the books (of which I mistakenly thought this was the first). As such, that's my frame of reference going into this.

The book was very different from the show I've grown to love - some characters are missing, others are very different, and the tonality of the entire story is completely different. Enough that it feels like a completely disconnected story from the Murdoch Mysteries television show.

And yet, I loved it in its own quirky way. The depiction of 1890s Toronto is gritty, without becoming anachronistically noir, and Jennings puts an amazing amount of detail into understanding the social structure and mentality of characters of the time period, without making it obvious or pointing out the differences.

The mystery itself - why a member of the Toronto constabulary would commit suicide during his shift, in an abandoned house - it's well told, and actually is a ‘mystery', rather than a thriller that you're able to see coming from a mile away, which is nice.