Sara Fraser

Peter Wickham does a wonderful job of the narration of this book and I particularly liked the shrewish voice of Tom's mother.

Several historical issues are raised in this novel: the extent of grave robbing and the selling of "fresh" corpses to hospitals and the like; the hazards of needle making for the woollen mills, a topic I had never given much thought to; the fact that parish constables like Tom Potts were under the control of the Parish council, were poorly paid, and thinly stretched; the lack of procedures that we now take for granted in detection of crimes.

I guess the latter is pretty obvious when you think about it, but Tom is dabbling in finger printing and teaching himself to perfect the technique and to recognise individual palm and finger prints.
According to Wikipedia a Czech physiologist and professor of anatomy at the University of Breslau, published a thesis in 1823 discussing 9 fingerprint patterns, but he did not mention any possibility of using fingerprints to identify people. Tom finds finger and palm prints fascinating and successfully uses them to identify suspects. Similarly he makes sketches and measurements of foot prints for later comparisons.

As my listening partner remarked, we are already familiar with some of this historical background, but placing it against a crime fiction story just makes it seem more real somehow.

THE RESURRECTION MEN is not for delicate sensibilities - there is a lot of crude language at the beginning, which probably seems stronger because it is actually being read to you. The book is #2 in Fraser's Thomas Potts series, of which there are now 4 titles. The author appears to be determined to give readers a historically authentic experience.… (mehr)

Little Rosie Pearson is left to fend for herself when her beloved grandmother is hounded to death on suspicion of being a witch. From then on, Rosie's life is one of hardship and abuse, until she finds love of sorts with a young private in the British Cavalry. She follows her husband's regiment to the Crimea, where her sunny personality and resilience will help her face the horror of that dreadful war.

I have read the Tildy books many moons ago and really enjoyed them. I haven’t read a Sara Fraser since, so when I was in the local library I picked up a copy of this book. I have to say it was awful and for me the magic that I found with the Tidly books has gone.

Rosie our heroine seems to go from the frying pan into the fire. From being left with her vile father after her Nan is killed, she is sold into prostitution and is abused from the age of ten ! Then she escapes at the age of 16, to end up married to a soldier who is a brute when drunk. Three quarters into the book I couldn't’t stand no more. After an attempted rape I had had enough so gave up. The book was full of doom and gloom.The book also seemed to have a lot happen in a few pages. One page Rosie is held captive as a prostitute then two pages on she has escaped, and is safe in the woods with a kind family.

I wouldn't recommend this book at all.… (mehr)