- Paperback: 352 pages
- Publisher: McArthur & Company
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1400049490
- ISBN-13: 978-1400049493
- Product Dimensions: 13.2 x 1.9 x 20.2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 249 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #336,382 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Elegant thriller - but ultimately disappointing,
By
This review is from: Dark Matter (Hardcover)
Kerr writes in an efficient but elegant style that grows on you as you work your way deeper into the novel. This is a thriller that is literary enough to satisfy those readers who prefer that sort of thing and is also surprisingly sordid at points. Ultimately though, this book is about a thriller and the plot and Kerr keeps things quite intricate, complex and convincing, as befits a protagonist like Sir Isaac Newton.Unfortunately, things bog down toward the end, and things take a spin toward Da Vinci Code silliness.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Issac Newton the Sleuth,
By David C Polk (Ottawa Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Dark Matter (Hardcover)
London at the turn of the century, 17th, that is, is a place of intrigue and mystery. Will the recoinage fail and cause England to be destroyed by France and the Catholics? The mystery is deepened with each new murder, but, is Issas Newton, and his faithful sidekick, up to solving the case? Read on, and learn. This book was a little tedious, but it had its moments.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
3.8 out of 5 stars (30 customer reviews) 15 of 17 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Kerr Back on Form,
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: DARK MATTER (Hardcover)
History, rather than the future seems to be where Kerr feels at his most comfortable and demonstrates himself a cut above most thriller and mystery writers. I wasn't a big fan of his novel The 2nd Angel. But his Bernie Gunther series of novels, collected as Berlin Noir, are something else again. I can't begin to remember how many people recommended that book to me, and I have never understood why he has never written another. That aside, this book shows Kerr on his best form since Berlin Noir. At once reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes and The Name of the Rose, I enjoyed this novel enormously. It is highly intelligent without being pretentious and extremely readable without ever being predictable. Above all it is informative as well as being entertaining. I am now going to buy a biography of Sir Isaac Newton and find out more about England's greatest scientist. Full marks to Kerr for a really clever idea.
10 of 12 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A mystery novel with a difference: a brain,
By Anthony Scipio - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: DARK MATTER (Hardcover)
I've read Richard Westfall's bio of Newton - a real monster - and I thought Kerr got him pretty well right. The point is that Newton was a very hard man to get to know, a real mystery. One of these other reviews grumbles that Kerr's portrait of Newton is less than inaccurate. Which part? Newton not being a heretic? He was. Newton not being an alchemist? He was. Newton not believing in the divinity of Jesus Christ? He didn't. Newton not working at the Royal Mint? He did. Newton caring very little for other people? He didn't. Newton being obsessed with empirical method? He was. If anything I got a better impression of Newton the man, than was to be found in Westfall's bio. Frankly if I had a criticism of this book it is that it seemed a little too accurate, sometimes at the expense of making the hero - Newton - seem rather unheroic. I guess this is what happens when you spend so much time with math. It turns you into a cold fish. The other reviewers got it right. This is a classic mystery novel. Best of all, it's beautifully written and easy to read.
13 of 18 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Betwixt matters dark, stilted, and incongruent,
By P. Kingsriter "R.N. Guy" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: DARK MATTER (Hardcover)
DARK MATTER by Philip Kerr is a tale of epic opportunity, but meager result. Kerr attempts to flesh-out a dark, brooding mystery in dark, brooding Central London during the dark, brooding 17th century. A reader could get the feeling that Mr. Kerr was trying to set a certain mood...The story observes Sir Isaac Newton through the eyes of his apprentice, Christopher Ellis, both "real" people. Newton is, of course, brilliant but also comes across as quite conceited, unfeeling, and not in the least bit charming. One could hope that the Newton character could be likeable, even in an eccentric manner, but Kerr's Newton gives the reader no reason to cheer, or care. Ellis is his swashbuckling sidekick who's good with a sword and better with the ladies. Yes, Ellis is, in fact, THAT cliched. In both cases, the characters move about London with relatively little believable motivation (Newton: pursuit of counterfeiters; Ellis: pursuit of some "tail"). Even with poetic license on his side, Kerr's revelations into the mind of what could be the world's most brilliant scientist are remarkably shallow and unimaginative. The prose is positively painful. One might imagine Kerr hunched over a thesaurus looking up words that sound old. From the first page, one can tell the reading of DARK MATTER will be an effort: "...a little consideration of heavenly deliverance might have helped me to channel my anger against Papist tyranny instead of the man who had impugned my honour." (And that's not even the whole sentence.) I'll admit the effort was valiant, but it lacks the rhythmic flow of literature of the day, and ends up stilted, staccato, and awkward. The unevenness of his effort is evident, never more dramatically than in the midst of Ellis' flowery description of a particularly attractive (and married) woman, he throws in a comment about her "boobies". Great literature, to be sure. With shallow characters, a mad-lib mystery plot, and over-formal, pretentious prose, DARK MATTER was a major disappointment. |
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