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298th out of 699 books
—
625 voters
The Alchemy of Murder (Nellie Bly #1)
Paris, the capital of Europe and center of world culture. People have gathered to celebrate the 1889 World's Fair, a spectacular extravaganza dedicated to new industries, scientific discoveries, and global exploration. Its gateway is the soaring Eiffel Tower. But an enigmatic killer stalks the streets, and a virulent plague is striking down Parisians by the thousands.
The w...more
The w...more
Hardcover, 368 pages
Published
March 16th 2010
by Forge Books
(first published March 1st 2010)
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This was a fairly enjoyable romp through Paris during the World's Fair of 1889. Nellie Bly, investigative reporter, turns detective to try and catch a murderer who may be Jack the Ripper, a brilliant chemist, or an anarchist. And that's sort of where the problems start. While I enjoyed the book, the story, and the setting, there was an overabundance of characters who seem to be included just because the author could place them in the same city at the same time. At times it's a reach as to why th...more
This was a terrific murder mystery with real-life figures as characters, lots of clever, exciting plot twists and a great ending!
Nellie Bly - the first woman investigative reporter, travels from New York to London and then on to Paris chasing a murderer who's method of murdering women is gruesomely similar to Jack the Ripper.
Nellie has a personal interest in finding this killer as someone she knew was a victim and she feels that she might have prevented that dead by taking action more quickly.
On...more
Nellie Bly - the first woman investigative reporter, travels from New York to London and then on to Paris chasing a murderer who's method of murdering women is gruesomely similar to Jack the Ripper.
Nellie has a personal interest in finding this killer as someone she knew was a victim and she feels that she might have prevented that dead by taking action more quickly.
On...more
Reporter Nellie Bly is on the trail of a despicable madman and she garners a lot of famous help along the way. Set during the 1899 World’s Fair in Paris, The Alchemy of Murder is a historical tale of murder, mayhem and mystery that will keep you turning pages at a fast clip.
Bly is after the man that murdered a friend that she made while undercover at Blackwell’s Asylum. Knowing only the name that he went by at the hospital, Dr. Blum, she trails him to London where she investigates the similar Ja...more
Bly is after the man that murdered a friend that she made while undercover at Blackwell’s Asylum. Knowing only the name that he went by at the hospital, Dr. Blum, she trails him to London where she investigates the similar Ja...more
A Victorian Paris Mystery Extraordinaire
Carol McCleary’s first installment of her new Nellie Bly mystery series comes out of the starting gate full gallop with a tour-de-force debut that will keep you up all night for one hell of a one-sitting read. Finely tuned polished writing and loveable characters will have historical mystery fans panting for more from this astoundingly accomplished new author.
Opening scenes of The Alchemy of Murder introduce the famous American female newspaper reporter N...more
Carol McCleary’s first installment of her new Nellie Bly mystery series comes out of the starting gate full gallop with a tour-de-force debut that will keep you up all night for one hell of a one-sitting read. Finely tuned polished writing and loveable characters will have historical mystery fans panting for more from this astoundingly accomplished new author.
Opening scenes of The Alchemy of Murder introduce the famous American female newspaper reporter N...more
I am a sucker for a good historical novel and I love strong female characters. Carol McCleary’s The Alchemy of Murder sets a new high standard for both historical novels and for a strong feminine character. That The Alchemy of Murder is a first novel is stunning and is hopefully prophetic about the talents of this new author. I believe it is.
McCleary brings to life, Nellie Bly from the dustbin of history giving us not only a grand novel heroine, but a flesh and blood woman that you will fall in...more
McCleary brings to life, Nellie Bly from the dustbin of history giving us not only a grand novel heroine, but a flesh and blood woman that you will fall in...more
It would seem that I am constantly being thwarted in my search for satisfying historical fiction. While I appreciate the historical accuracy and the meticulous research McCleary did for this novel (as opposed to the OTHER historical that fell flat) I still found myself wanting something else. I did like the details surrounding the French Anarchists and the cafe society of Monmartre, mais le livre? Il ne m'etait pas satisfait. Pas de tout. Quelle domage.
As intrepid as the character of Nellie Bly...more
As intrepid as the character of Nellie Bly...more
Good premise, terrible writing. Using third person perspective to provide more information to the reader, the author completely failed to differentiate the voices. Picking any page at random, you would be unable to discern which character you were reading, and all of them spoke anachronistically. If I could believe the author was trying for wit in this, then I would not have been so frustrated and irritated to have slogged through the book, only to be thoroughly irked by a the final words of the...more
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Ooof. This is gonna be... tricky.
McCleary uses the real life figures of Nellie Bly and Jules Verne in her Victorian Murder Mystery. There can be problems with using real people in this way. The main one is this: These were real people. They are inspirations to many, and many readers won't agree with your interpretation of their character, actions and history. Nellie Bly was a fascinating woman, who got herself incaracerated in a mental asylum in order to better report on t...more
Ooof. This is gonna be... tricky.
McCleary uses the real life figures of Nellie Bly and Jules Verne in her Victorian Murder Mystery. There can be problems with using real people in this way. The main one is this: These were real people. They are inspirations to many, and many readers won't agree with your interpretation of their character, actions and history. Nellie Bly was a fascinating woman, who got herself incaracerated in a mental asylum in order to better report on t...more
Really enjoyed this quirky and interesting mystery and loved the historical figures, period setting and background details. I'm impressed McCleary was able to weave together actual people and events in a rather complicated yet plausible plot. I haven't read Bly's diaries but I wondered if she did hobnob with all these famous faces in real life?
Nellie Bly makes a great heroine, though her character/voice seemed to waver in parts: She seems fearless in most of the book, but her "affair" with Jule...more
Nellie Bly makes a great heroine, though her character/voice seemed to waver in parts: She seems fearless in most of the book, but her "affair" with Jule...more
I picked this up at the library because something about the cover made it seem like the kind of book I like. I was right as I enjoyed this largely light-hearted romp through 1889 World Exposition Paris. The main character is Nellie Bly, intrepid newspaperwoman who is tracking down a crazed mass murderer.
The story is presented as if it is her own memoirs, recovered by editors and edited for spelling. Thus most of the book is in first-person. However sometimes the action shifts to follow other cha...more
The story is presented as if it is her own memoirs, recovered by editors and edited for spelling. Thus most of the book is in first-person. However sometimes the action shifts to follow other cha...more
Fiction about real historical figures is always risky, but this example is especially awful. The only reason I made it to page 26 is that the book doesn't start until page 11. The writing is horrendous and the exposition painfully heavy-handed - asides about the construction of the Eiffel Tower or the demographics of Montmartre are unnecessary and footnotes about the real Nellie Bly are just awkward, because she was probably way more interesting than this wooden character.
Also, anything that use...more
Also, anything that use...more
I'd heard of Nellie Bly before, but this fictional treatment matches her to the world at the time she lived, which was interesting. I finished a few weeks back Eiffel's Tower, which also dealt with Paris in 1889 during the Paris Exposition, so it was neat to read another description of it, and my previous reading helped with my understanding of this book. Nellie is a reporter back when women were not. She is hunting for a killer the French authorities refuse to acknowledge because of the bad eff...more
This book was throughly interesting and slightly scary, so good! it was a tad graphic and it did give me nightmares but I feel like that is a good sign :)
So the story is about investigative reporter Nellie Bly (real person)and how she is tracking down the man responsible for the Paris Slashings during the world fair in 1885, she has a group of guys that she connects with to help her, Oscar Wilde, Jules Verne and Louis Pastur are among them.
Scary and thrilling and awesome because it is based on...more
So the story is about investigative reporter Nellie Bly (real person)and how she is tracking down the man responsible for the Paris Slashings during the world fair in 1885, she has a group of guys that she connects with to help her, Oscar Wilde, Jules Verne and Louis Pastur are among them.
Scary and thrilling and awesome because it is based on...more
Great fun - a real pot-boiler. Based upon the character of Nellie Bly, this puts her together with Jules Verne, Louis Pasteur, Oscar Wilde, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, and a few other interesting characters at the time of the Paris World's Fair early in the 20th C. I really enjoy fictional explorations of historical characters like this (cf. The Alienist). The writing is not exactly literary, but it rings true, and I did not want to put it down.
This book is a very low 3, in fact, it's closer to a 2.5. There are scads of grammatical and typographical errors. The premise is good and I love Nellie Bly as a character. The book really starts strong, but rapidly devolves to the level of a farce. By the last third of the book, I had to force myself to finish reading it. The ending (last 30 pages or so) is stronger than the middle of the book, but not as strong as the beginning. It feels very much like McCleary was forced to make the book long...more
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Amazingly bad. Plot is ridiculous. Writing is purely Gothic horrible. Central character is Nellie Bly. Her newly found diaries provide the basis for the story. Story is set in Paris where the fearless Nell chases down a murdering anarchist (who also happens to be Jack the Ripper). She meets Oscar Wilde, Louis Pasteur, Toulouse Latrec and even beds Jules Verne. Total nonsense. Might have been pretty funny if done with a sense of humor. But no. Waste of time. Don't know why I even finished reading...more
The Alchemy of Murder by Carol McCleary is the first book in the Nellie Bly mystery series. McCleary presents this story as the long-lost record of Bly's search for a murderer that led her from a mental institution in New York to London to Paris' World Expo. While Nellie did her famous stint in Blackwell's Island, an infamous mental asylum for women, she became friends with a prostitute named Josephine who disappeared after a doctor offers her a way off the island if she will help him with an ex...more
I saw this book on a shelf in the library and decided to read it because: 1) It had the words "murder" and "alchemy" in the title, and 2) It had a picture of the Eiffel Tower on the cover. Not a bad decision.
I was rather distracted, so it took me a while to get through this book, but that should not reflect poorly on the book. Nellie Bly is the main character and she is chasing a murderer across two continents. She's an incredibly modern female. It's set around 1889, so I learned a great deal ab...more
I was rather distracted, so it took me a while to get through this book, but that should not reflect poorly on the book. Nellie Bly is the main character and she is chasing a murderer across two continents. She's an incredibly modern female. It's set around 1889, so I learned a great deal ab...more
In theory this book should have been awesome - it attempts to combine elements as diverse as historical fiction, nineteenth century biological terrorism, romance, suspense and mystery - but it failed spectacularly. In my opinion, the biggest issue was the sub par writing and the superficial and underdeveloped characterizations. I really did want to like it and at times I thought the author was going to ramp up the tension/suspense and I'd really get into it, but that never happened. Not sure if...more
Loved it! Nellie Bly, Louis Pasteur, Jules Verne, the 1889 World's Fair in Paris, and an evil master criminal bent on using the then just emerging understanding of microbes to create a weapon of mass destruction. An intelligent, resourceful and passionate woman as the protagonist taking on both the criminal & the male-dominated world of fin de siecle Europe. What more could you ask for?
The book starts off as a really fast paced and engrossing mystery. You will read through the first hundred pages completely absorbed in the story but then you start to slow about a third of the way in as the book becomes less about the story and more about how many historical people Ms. McCleary thought she could get away with using in her book. Oh yea and then there was that sex scene that would probably have made the real Nellie Bly blush.
Anyway if you can get through all of that it does have...more
Anyway if you can get through all of that it does have...more
It wasn't that this was a bad book, I actually learned a lot about the black plague and Nellie Bly, it was just so much! You know who the murderer is so its mot necessarily a murder mystery to you. There was a twist at the end but by that time came around i was so tired of reading it. It took me 2 weeks to read 360 pages because of how boring it got in the end. I liked the story, just not how it was written.
This murder mystery takes place in Paris during the World Exposition. It is somewhat historical fiction. The main character and detective is Nellie Bly-first woman investigative reporter. The story kept me intrigued and wondering how some of it fit together. It also takes place in the seedy parts of Paris-Moulin Rouge, so be prepared for some language and a few other tidbits.
This was a fun read. It's a first novel for this author, and very well-written. I enjoyed how the author used Nelly Bly, Oscar Wilde, Louis Pasteur, and Jules Verne as the main characters. She does a great job of capturing the time period.
Nineteenth century investigative reporter Nelly Bly is a historical figure who's well worth bringing to the attention of a present-day audience, and the first book in Carol McCleary's series does just that. But this novel, incorporating Bly, Jack the Ripper, Louis Pasteur, Jules Verne, and Oscar Wilde, takes on too much and doesn't do it all justice. It's perfectly enjoyable, it's just nothing remarkable.
fascinating book, i love this series, and the covers are amazing! i can hardly wait for book 2, called THE ILLUSION OF MURDER, coming in the spring of 2011. Great to see some wonderful historical figures.. can't wait till the spring..DAVID
I liked this book especially the pictures, illustrations, I love any book that has pictures. I think it gives the book so much more personality. I am going to read the next book in the series.
This seemed like a book I should like - had lots of good elements: Nelly Bly/World's Fair/travel/intrigue. But I just could not get inside the plot or come to care about the characters.
This book was difficult to follow with non-nonsensical twists and turns. I read it because I met the author - a very nice woman - but the story and writing style were not to my taste.
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Carol McCleary was born in Seoul, Korea and lived in Hong Kong, Japan and the Philippines before settling in the USA. She now lives on Cape Cod in an antique house that is haunted by ghosts.
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Feb 23, 2010 01:14pm