Review: Villains and Victims in Victorian London
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 12 5, 2013
The story opens with Mary running from she knows not what, with jewellery and coins she knows nothing about, in a Victorian London she does not recognise. Described by one of the `gang' who send her out to pick pockets as `Crazy Mary, this epithet appears accurate until we realise she is lost in her own fears and is trying to make sense of the world around her, combined with a compulsion to break streetlights as they are eyes watching her. But watching her do what?Her `protectors', Jack, and Colin, who likes to goad her with her bad memory, uses her to help them spring a criminal associate from a police station and sends Mary in to create a distraction.Once inside the building Mary isn't sure why she is there or what she is supposed to do, but something about Alex Stewart, the man she was told to speak to strikes a chord with her. Mary starts to remember and from here things go horribly wrong, especially for Colin and Jack.Without spoiling the plot entirely, because this is a short story, I was left wondering why Colin sent her into this situation at all when he knew exactly who Mary was and how she had lost her memory.Saying that, the characters were well drawn and the Victorian vernacular authentic.The narrative kept me reading, though at only 9,000 words I felt there was more mileage in Mary's story and could have been longer.