Product Description

Dr Marvello's Travelling Circus brings a touch of magic and wonder each tine it comes to town. But when master conjuror Cornelius Quaint and his troupe take to the streets of Victorian London, little do they know of the danger that lies ahead. The arrival of Marvello's Travelling Circus to the streets of Victorian London was supposed to herald a carnival of entertainment and wonder but when a series of brutal and savage murders take place the number one suspect is the circus strongman, Prometheus. Enter Cornelius Quaint, circus owner and master conjuror, to clear the name of his gargantuan employee. But what he sees as a simple case of wrongful arrest proves to be more complex when ghosts from his own past start to appear on the scene and events take an unexpected turn. A book of great wit and bravado, a circus of a novel with a central character who will sweep you off your feet and into this dark historical adventure.? The Equivoque Principle is the sparkling debut novel in the Cornelius Quaint series.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #801041 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-01
• Format: Special Edition
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

About the Author
Darren Craske hails from the south of England and has been telling stories in one form or another all his life. He began his craft writing and illustrating comic books before moving onto writing novels in 2003. His approach is unashamedly a simple one; to carve darn good adventure stories with pits, traps, perils and troubles with a colourful palette of characters and keep readers on the edge of their seats whilst doing it. The Equivoque Principle saw the debut of the enigmatic conjuror and circus owner, Cornelius Quaint, and Craske is all about setting down a new mythology that he hopes will entertain readers for the long term. The eagerly awaited second book in the Cornelius Quaint Chronicles, The Eleventh Plague, continues Quaint's quest to stop the machinations of the villainous Hades Consortium and the tale forges the blade anew for what promises to be one of the wildest literary rides in ages. From Victorian London to Egypt, China, Rome and beyond, it's a safe bet that Cornelius Quaint's adventures are going to be thrilling readers for a long time yet and he is in good hands. Adventure, danger, murder, death!it's all very Quaint.

Customer Reviews

Victorian Deja Vu
Have I read this before? It's all so familiar. I know it's trying to evoke the Victorian era but the dialogue is a mixture of extremely contemporary language ("what's your point?" "It's show time!" "You've been a naughty, naughty boy" plus an abundant use of very 21st century police jargon) and ersatz Dickensianspeak. The book started off with an eerie and authentic atmosphere and then in three chapters it quickly degenerated into a formulaic thriller that is turning out to more and more like the tired programs I've seen on TV. I keep being reminded of "The Wild, Wild West" while reading this. Just as that old TV show tried to be hip by taking a 19th century setting and interpolating it with a 1960s mindset so does this book. These characters are supposedly living two centuries ago yet they act and talk like they belong in the present day - especially the policemen with all their talk of the "perpetrator" and "forensics" and carping about all their paperwork and reports. This was the state of the Metropolitan Police circa 1853? I sincerely doubt it. I have a problem with a book that attempts to mimic a historical era but ends up being entirely anachronistic in its storytelling and philosophy. It might as well be set in 1930 or 1950 or...TODAY! It's a big personal bias that I have a hard time setting aside with these historical mysteries. Unless a writer is inteding to parody the literature of the era I don't understand the very modern approach to writing "historical" genre fiction. What's the point of setting your story two centuries ago if it doesn't even seem like 50 years ago? I hope the tone and story improve. Right now I am growing weary of it and I'm more and more tempted to donate it to the neighborhood thrift store.

Just terrible
It is hard to know where to begin in my attempt to convey how truly awful this book is.

The book, set in 1853, fails to evoke even the slightest feeling of Victorian London and indeed the result of which is that it could have been set at anytime or any place. Sticking in a few pea soupers and the odd hansom ride does not a Victorian novel make. The plot is so cliché that you don't even have to pay attention to the story as you have already heard it told many times before.

The characters are two dimensional and it feels as if the author is forcing you to like this group of, what he thinks must be, a quirky and eccentric bunch of people, whereas in fact their just rather annoying.

Comparisons to Mark Gattis and G W Dahlquist are an insult to both these authors. It lacks the wit and charm of the Lucifer Box novels and the decadence, scope, imagination and creativity of The Glass Books.

The writing is so painfully bad that when the I read "The rain clouds above suddenly broke, as a metaphor underlining the bitterness between these two people" and on the next page "A grumble of distant thunder broke many miles away, symbolising the tumultuous emotions of hate bubbling over inside of his cold, dark heart", I gave up the will to continue.

larger than life
This book grew on me the more I read of it and by the end I was really hooked. I had a few issues with it - the authors exessive use of adjectives in every sentence was annoying, reading like someone who is trying too hard.Fortunately this wore off as the story progressed also the charaters' conversations were riddled with action, standing up sitting down spinning around, one minute running hands through hair, the next thumping the table, they must have been quite worn out at the end of it. I would suggest that the author read some of his work aloud to hear how silly some of it sounded.
Despite these however, the characters were strong, the plot was good and the action sequences were inspired especially the chase at the end. I will definitely look out for the next instalment.