London, September 1666. The Great Fire rages through the city, consuming everything in its path. Even the impregnable cathedral of St. Paul's is engulfed in flames and reduced to ruins. Among the crowds watching its destruction is James Marwood, son of a disgraced printer, and reluctant government informer.
In the aftermath of the fire, a semi-mummified body is discovered in the ashesof St. Paul's, in a tomb that should have been empty. The man's body has beenmutilated and his thumbs have been tied behind his back.
Under orders from the government, Marwood is tasked with hunting down thekiller across the devastated city. But at a time of dangerous internal dissentand the threat of foreign invasion, Marwood finds his investigation leads himinto treacherous waters - and across the path of a determined, beautiful andvengeful young woman.
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[THE NOISE WAS the worst](HarperCollins, 7 April 2016, ebook, 496 pages, copyfrom publisher via NetGalley and voluntarily reviewed)
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I had high hopes for this book, having read andadored the author's Fallen Angel trilogy. Unfortunately, this book didnot quite work for me. I enjoyed most of the historical details in the novel. Thesework really well. Taylor brings the past to vivid, memorable life. You areplunged into the past from the start of the book. The characters are wellwritten. Still, something was missing for me. I felt the plot of The Ashesof London was rather lacking. Intrigue and mystery is built from the startwhen a body turns up during the fire, the corpse of someone who has clearlybeen murdered. This central premise never really goes anywhere. The book neverreally explains why the two men are murdered. The plot gets swallowed by thefantastic historical details. The suspense initially created sort of tapers outand disappears. However, there are some historical details that were just sillyor inaccurate (people order cold beer in taverns when ice wasn't invented atthe time the novel is set). This jarred at times and gave a disjointed readingexperience. The Ashes of London had a great premise but doesn't alwayswork.
