The Lamplighter (Hardcover)

Anthony O'Neill's sophomore effort centers on this unusual woman, who as a child in an Edinburgh orphanage let her mind soar beyond the gray walls. The repressive headmaster, however, was unable to keep his young charge sufficiently under his thumb, instead turning her over to "parents" she never knew. Young Evelyn then finds herself face to face with the once faceless lamplighter she would watch at night outside her window. At this point all Hell breaks loose.

A couple decades later, people start dying and bodies are exhumed. The assistant police chief, seeking glory apart from his superior, takes on the case and immediately finds himself stymied at every turn, even as he uses the events as a touchpoint for a true crime book he's writing. Meanwhile, an intrepid professor McKnight and his walking partner, Canavan, also partake in the skullduggery, attempting to find their own answers to the crimes.

Into this mix comes Evelyn, now an adult, though a highly confused one with a Jekyll/Hyde personality. Instantly, she becomes the focus of both investigations. But things take a strange twist when a supernatural beast appears to be committing the crimes--a beast that always leads back to this woman who suffered an arcane wound so long ago.

Having read "The Dante Club," another book set in the latter half of the 19th Century and also featuring amateur sleuths of the academic kind on the trail of a hellish murderer, comparisons with this book are inevitable. Both also feature somewhat tortured dialog in keeping with the times, plenty of gore, brooding events, and spooky religious overtones. but O'Neill's book winds up on the short end of the stick.

The problems here are multiple. The conjoined storylines seem odd, then resolve to further the plot, only the reasoning is highly forced and ultimately unbelievable. O'Neill also writes as if he has a screenplay in mind. That this work resembles so many of the forgettable movies scripts that have play in the cineplexes for a couple weeks and then vanish makes it more of a product of our age than the Victorian. Worst of all, the author makes the classic mistake of not really understanding the nature of the religious topic he attempts to manipulate in his book. This leads to a highly unsatisfying conclusion for people who DO understand.

In the author's defense, his style and voice are very good, he paints his settings with enough detail to envision them well, and the story has a decent creepiness. This makes the lacks all the more glaring, unfortunately.

If you want a Victorian murder mystery with a religious bent, go with "The Dante Club," instead. This lamplighter winds up snuffed.