At one point, she uses the word “neanderthal,” in the more modern, non-literal sense. There were a couple of possible anachronisms that contributed to a lack of authenticity in India’s voice. The voice didn’t feel particularly authentic, either to the time period or in general. Her voice is relentlessly chatty, breezy and jokey.

The book is narrated first-person by India herself, and while I was well-prepared to like her, I just couldn’t. My main problem with India Black – and it was unfortunately a big one – was with the heroine. The mystery man turns out to be French (um, that’s his name, not his nationality), a government agent who then summons India to a meeting with Benjamin Disraeli.

During this middle-of-the-night operation, a mysterious man arrives on the scene and takes charge – he will see to the disposal of the body, and India only need produce the briefcase that the unfortunate fellow brought to his rendezvous.Įxcept that the briefcase – which turns out to contain important government papers – is missing, as is the prostitute who was with the client when he expired.

She hatches an alternate plan, enlisting a local urchin to assist her in moving the body to a public place where it can be found easily (she is not so hard-hearted that she would not want the man’s family to know what happened to him, though she denies any kindness is involved). India quickly decides that the logistics of informing the authorities and getting the body removed in a conventional and legal way would be inconvenient and bad for business. India Black is, as mentioned, the proprietress of a house of ill-repute, one in which a client unexpectedly shuffles off this mortal coil in the midst of being entertained by one of the prostitutes. Unfortunately, it didn’t work very well for me. Cyr mysteries and the Arianna Franklin medieval mystery series), and I’m delighted by the idea of a madam heroine, I eagerly dove in to the book. Since I’m fond of several historical mystery series (notably C.S. The title of your debut novel jumped out from a list of new books for review, and I did a little research and found that India Black was a historical mystery, set in Victorian England and featuring our eponymous heroine as a madam who ends up entangled in espionage. The first review is by Jennie (and is the more negative review) and the second is by Jia (the more positive review). Note: In order to combine comments for this one book, I’ve grouped two reviews together. Jia B+ Reviews / C Reviews 19th century / Agent/Spies/Undercover 11 Comments

India Black by Carol K. Carr