The Devi's Grin

Author: Annalie Wendeberg
Pages: 212
Series: Anna Kronberg Thriller #2
Genre: Historical Fiction Mystery
First Published: September 2012
Book Description (from Good Reads): London 1889. A dead man is found floating in the city’s waterworks. Fearing an epidemic, the Metropolitan Police call upon bacteriologist Dr Anton Kronberg to examine the body. All signs point toward cholera having killed the man…but for faint marks around wrists and ankles.
Evidence for a crime is weak, and the police lose interest in the case. But Kronberg suspects that the dead man’s final days had been steeped in cruelty. Soon, a second victim is found, and Kronberg gets embroiled in a web of abduction, abuse, and murder.
But catching a killer and staying alive would be easier if the doctor didn’t have secrets of…her own.

Things to consider

• Characters: 8.5
• Anna is a decided woman, even if she has to lie her way through her life anything as long as she can continue to practice her line of work. She wants to practice being a bacteriologist even if women were not allowed to practice medicine at the time. Quite bold of her really. She is compassionate and decided But she can also be very stubborn and she wants to solve any mystery that comes into her path even if it does place her in the tight spot.
• Sherlock makes an appearance here as well. He is witty, impertinent and very observant as usual. But it gives you nice look inside not his analytical side but his heart as well. A mini, not even romance that arrises here. 
• Logic: 8.5
• The situations painted here are realistic enough and appropriate for the time period even if the science part of the isolation and identification I am no expert but it sounds ok to me. So I will assume it is accurate enough. 
• Plot: 8.0
• It is a nice semi-fast paced story. Since the opening of the book, we are taken in by the social limitations, to the people of different classes, to women looking to make a living, to the situations that some of them face when simply walking down the street. 
• The injustice, the most VULNERABLE part of society is forced to live in and such a normal circumstance that no one in there really tries anything to change that, very little people even care enough to look for guilty parties to make them pay for what the vulnerable people face. 
• Intention: 8.5
• This story is not only a lesson of getting over the trauma. An incentive to keep working sometimes life keeps making things difficult be it for whatever reason, keep going. At least now women do not have that many limitations like the ones in the past, we are better, way better. 
• Intrigue: 7.0
• The mystery is very classical, it fits the setting of the time period they face. Also the incorporation of Sherlock Holmes and adding a semi almost romance to him and have her be very witty and clever as well; it is such a good addition for it.
• The mystery is good enough, you end up knowing the ending as soon as the first clue is shown but the way to make the capture of the villain even if our main characters know for the last third of the book they know who their target is but they need to capture him through the law so there is no more mystery but it was mainly anticipation of the capture and how they will manage.
• Enjoyment: 8.5
• Writing Style: 8.0
• It is a very capturing book, it takes on things that interest me. Past struggles of society, woman's struggles to succeed in careers, woman's liberation and not following the traditional I want to get married and have children. Also, it takes on a very delicate subject, it touches over rape a subject I usually go out of my way to avoid. I did not know this was included in here, but it was done not in too much detail and it did not happen live; it was more of a memory so that made it a bit more bearable to read about. Also, it was touched and treated as the awful thing it is, not downplaying or ghosting over it without addressing it; the best part is that even if it was something that marked her, the victim was able to move on and she was able to eventually open up to relationships afterward, she does not live in constant fear after the incident.  

Total Score: 57.0

Average: 8.10

Star Rating: 3.85

Used to accomplish the challenges:

Mythothon Echidna mother of monsters. Read a book about monsters- dragons, zombies, serial killers, ect.