Thursday, 16 December 2021

Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Blood & Sugar

 'I shouldn't have bothered. The book is a period murder mystery set in 18th Century Deptford and revolving round the iniquities of slavery. It was awful though. The dialogue was clunky, a sample from a random page being ' Forgive me for interrupting your breakfast, but I require a few minutes of your time'. Maybe an attempt to write in the perceived elevated tones of the times, but it just sounded clumsy. Add in to that a dull as ditchwater main character, one dimensional and of course, the white saviour destined to solve the case. When the murderer turned out to be a black slave, well. . . uggh. 'But he was brutalised by his white masters, don't you see? It's actually a very clever commentary on the depravities of slavery and how it debases us all. Except the white saviour of course'.

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