DNF.

Moved too slowly and I didn't find the character's behaviour particularly plausible so I just skipped to the end.

A book that celebrates the Golden Age of detective fiction with the use of a clever mystery, atmosphere, and a main character that many can relate to. Eric is a half Chinese immigrant that works for a publishing company that produces mystery books. He then becomes wrapped up in a series of murders in his neighborhood. This was such a great book from an indie author that made me come back for more.

Very clear, engaging writing. Fabulous characters. I love the detective. Excellent setting and historical background to make the mystery even more rich.

If you like Agatha Christie, I think you'll like this book.

"A Gentleman's Murder" was a decent attempt to recreate the golden age mysteries style but I found the reading experience was a bit of a drag. A story with great historical background and description of the post-war London, an intriguing plot, but overloaded with information and distractions. I wasn't warm to any of the characters, and back in my head I so wanted to finish the book asap and got it over with.

I'd give the book a 4-star rating, credited to the author's attention to detail, the extensive research, and his old-school writing style but the less-than-enjoyable-reading-experience took half a star away.

Reminds me of the Rennie Airth war mysteries set in England. Love it when I enjoy something I grab spontaneously from the Speed Read shelf.

I almost gave up on this book like three times. I was traveling and had nothing else to do but read it, so don’t get the idea that it gets any more exciting. Without a doubt it is dry. Dry as California during wild fire season. Dry as 007’s martinis. Dry as this review is turning out to be.

BUT. If you are a well hydrated reader with nothing else to do, and you skim a little bit of the boring parts i.e. descriptions of the weather and the buildings, and you make it through to the end, you will recognize what this book is. It’s a labor of love and an ode to the golden era of detective fiction with a bonus spin of a diverse character.

So let me start at the beginning. Eric is a millionth generation, okay like third or fourth, member at this military club in London in 1924. He’s a World War I veteran, and he’s also half Chinese. But because his English father was a member of this fancy gentleman’s club, he’s also a member. And despite the fact he is racially profiled at every turn and a lot of the members aren’t kind to him, Eric feels something of a debt to the club. He cares about its members and what happens to them. When a friendly wager turns into a murder, Eric steps and to solve the crime.

Yes, the descriptions of the buildings were boring. But the author does a really good job, the more I think about it, of building a cast of supporting characters who are three-dimensional and realistic enough to be able to be told apart. I hate when you have fifty side characters who are all similar in nature and you don’t know who is who. Here we had a bunch of war veterans, who turned out to have a lot of background and history, but I could still tell you who is who.

Of course, big bonus points for having a Chinese character in the 1920s. The author doesn’t let you forget that Eric is different and all his interactions, negative ones for the most part, art done in a way that makes them seem sadly realistic without being over-the-top and fake sounding. At one point Eric wishes for a detective novel with a Chinese hero. I feel like the author wrote that for his younger self.

The other thing about this book is that it is clearly the author’s pride and joy. I almost want to delete the first line of my review because I can just picture Mr. Huang laboring over this book for years, enjoying the research and bringing his love of detective fiction into his own book. This was not written in a rush. The author was probably sitting in a cozy office overlooking a body of water in the fall with a pot of tea at his elbow and a loyal dog and his feet. His family probably read chapters of it after dinner and critiqued it and tried to guess who done it.

Arguably there were clues they are so the reader could guess who did it, but as I’ve already admitted, I wasn’t reading very closely at times. So I cannot fault the author’s writing, the story, or the unique twist on mysteries that still manage to remain true to form. It was just the pace that slowed me down. And honestly the last 80 pages are so were much better paced… so I will probably give this a 3.5 out of five stars because there’s a lot of good in it if you make it to the end.

Wearing its Golden Age Mysteries influence proudly, this wonderful story introduces Eric Peterkin, young gentleman and former Lieutenant in WWI, as he investigates a murder at his club. A club comprised of a long line of former soldiers and officers, of which a Peterkin forebear was one of the original founders.
When a new member is found murdered in the club’s vault, some of the members come under suspicion, including Eric, as, being half Chinese, he is automatically suspected thanks to the common fear about the “Yellow Peril”. When Eric’s questions begin raising unpleasant memories amongst the other gentleman of the war and of a missing nurse at a hospital the suspects all stayed at during the war, Eric is threatened with expulsion from the club, and more seriously, with attempts on his life.

I loved this book. The writing is great, and historical details are skillfully imparted to the reader, along with the implications of the war: the technological and cultural changes, as well as the damage on the men’s bodies and psyches, in the form of sudden outbursts, fear of loud noises, and drug addiction. There’s also the rising anti-Chinese sentiment, which Eric gets to experience, and though the son of a wealthy English family, is a victim of almost constant racial slurs, both within the club and from the police.

I stumbled upon this book at the library, and was intrigued by its description, then was impressed by Christopher Huang’s amateur detective, Eric, and his unique perspectives on the situation, using his both insider and outsider statuses to move amongst the other gentleman, but also to see things they were not able to. I wish there were more Eric Peterkin stories already available now, as I liked him a lot, and really enjoyed Huang’s take on the Golden Age detective story.

3.5 stars. Hopefully there will be a book 2.

There are a few things you might not know about me. 1.) I love clickbait. 2.) I can be a sucker for ads, not the ones on tv necessarily, more often the ones that show up on websites or facebook, you know those targetted ads. A Gentleman’s Murder showed up in one of the ads on Goodreads. I forget what exactly the mini-blurb in the ad said, probably something along the lines of “reminiscent of the Golden Age of Mysteries, but it, along with the title and cover, was enough to send me off to the full blurb and I ended up adding it to my to-read list.

A Gentleman’s Murder takes place just after WWI in London. While a lot of the mysteries I’ve read that were actually written in that era gloss over the war, this one faces it aftereffects head-on. “Shell Shock,” since this takes places before we referred to it as PTSD, plays an important role in the book, not in the mystery itself, but in how the characters deal with life following the war. The Brittania Club, which the novel centers on, only, or almost only, admits men who fought during the war, so most of the characters were soldiers or officers, and many of the wives were nurses. The war has only been over for 8 years, people still think that it was “the war to end all wars,” and its influence can clearly be seen. The members of the Brittania Club are an interesting lot, they all have their own backstories, their own prejudices and loyalties, their own talents and blind spots.

Eric, our amateur detective, fought in Flanders. He has an unusual viewpoint, though, at least in mysteries I’ve read from the age. His father was British, an aristocrat, and his mother Chinese. Both are dead now, but Eric has a lot of his mother’s features, so although he belongs to the upper class, he’s still an outsider at the same time. He’s smart and a bit witty. I liked him. The end of this one makes it seem like he and his friend Avery will be solving another mystery soon and I hope that’s the case. Eric would make a good series detective.

The mystery itself was well-done and fair. Eric has a legitimate reason for both thinking and caring that the police are maybe not doing their best to solve the case. It’s a traditional mystery, the kind I enjoy. It moves pretty quickly and while the plot seems a little convoluted, I think in the end all the strings tie together well. I loved the good old-fashioned denouement—another thing I’m a sucker for.

A Gentleman’s Murder is just a good, solid historical mystery. I’d definitely recommend it.