Doktor Glass
At the end of the nineteenth century, the most ambitious engineering project the world has ever seen is nearing completion. Soon the Transatlantic Span, which links Liverpool and New York City via a mammoth suspension bridge, will open for business. Inspector Matthew Langton is distracted from the excitement, though, by the recent death of his wife and a tricky murder case involving a plot to assassinate the queen. Quickly, the story takes a turn toward the supernatural. The mysterious man’s death and that of Langton’s wife might be connected to the Jar Boys, a group of soul-stealers, and to the shadowy Doktor Glass. Not as colorful or steampunkish as Mark Hodder’s Burton & Swinburne in the Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack (2010), also set in an alternate Victorian England, the book is more of a traditional police procedural with supernatural and alternate-world trappings. Although a bit unfocused at times, as if the author were unsure whether the book was one thing or the other, the narrative will engage readers comfortable with genre-bending. --David Pitt