Friday 14 April 2017

Book review: 'Ghastly Business'

Ghastly BusinessGhastly Business by Louise Levene




Ah me! I did try to finish this novel. It's not that it's a bad book. The author has a dry sense of humour, a neat way with words and contrives a deceptive plot. What simply put me off was Dr Alfred Kemble and his conversation.

The plot revolves round Dr Kemble and his Pathology Department. This is 1929 and Dora has found herself a job as near to medicine as she is ever likely to get without being allowed to study to be a doctor. Kemble tries to do postmortems on as many bodies as possible but it is still not respectable and he ends up helping the police with murder victims.

Kemble is an oddity and his conversation revolves round details of Venereal disease - pustules and puss - nipples and tits, sadistic sexual behaviour - and he loves murder victims. He is also a womaniser and not a 'decent chap' at all. I also found Dora too feeble for words a lot of the time.

I read at night in bed or with my meals. This book put me off eating and gave me nightmares so I actually gave up on page 187. There are 280 pages in the book. Many readers have enjoyed the book so don't let me put you off.




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READERS PLEASE NOTE:
1 a.m. 19th of April to 1 a.m. 24th of April all my novels in ebook form: 'Jacob's Justice', 'Tizzie', and 'Bittersweet', will be on sale for 99 pence or cents at Amazon and Smashwords and https://coverblurb.com plus various other book sites