Review: Grabs You By The Throat... Literally!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 28, 2012
EXTREME WARNING: Unless your computer has updated Norton Anti-virus protection or comparable protection against covert & malicious software (which infects your computer & then downloads all your files at night by spies) DO NOT ACCESS ANY OF MY REVIEWS!!! [This is no hype or joke.]I like good, well-written, detective stories, but mysteries are not usually high on my list of reading priorities. However this period novel, THE MONSTER IN THE MIST (A Chronological Man Adventure), was recommended to me by a relative who (somewhat) shares my taste in literature...and I thank her for the recommendation.This novel, a pre-modern, techno-thriller, (and almost love story), is very well written and researched, and an excellent read into early American, pre-20th century, urban culture. It clearly shows the patent political and social disreagard by Boston city police for lower and working class criminal investigations among the poor. Even more importantly, it shows the social disregard and physical barbarity of early treatments in modern psychiatry. As was shown in a similar novel about this period,(TEN DAYS IN A MADHOUSE by Nellie Bly), any individual who was sent to an asylum (even merely for observation) entered a literal prison... a one-way door into abuse. If you were only slightly disturbed or emotianally agitated, but not really insane upon entry, you were almost certain to become so very shortly afterwards... and there you remained... for life!!!But the essence of THIS particular novel is simply: Why are people being literally snatched off the streets of 1890's Boston?  The answer and the characters (very reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes mysteries) will remain memorable to you for a very long time. I highly recommend this novel to you.