In a genre like crime fiction it is very difficult these days to get an original angle to the story. This is however where The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter succeeded. One murder, and the reader is given every detail of its planning, its execution and its aftermath from different angles.

Because we were there, so to speak, there is little crime solving in the novel. What we do get to see is the frustration of police officers and the web of lies some of the characters are spinning. While this sounds very interesting on paper, I found it difficult to connect with any of the characters and I didn't really care much whether they would succeed or not. If any, I probably cheered for the hitman. There also were a lot of things unsolved at the end of the novel, which I don't know will be addressed in the next.

Interesting premise, but in the end, I expected more from it.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

We tend to think of sarcasm as a modern affliction, but Charles Mackay's writing is as sarcastic as anything I have ever read. Extraordinary Popular Delusions is a 700 page study of what Mackay calls the Madness of Europe, up until 1841. The book is divided into long and short sections, depending on how exhaustively the author wanted to explore a given topic. Some of the long sections include financial bubbles, alchemy, the Crusades, and witch hunting frenzies. Shorter sections cover various types of medical quackery, doomsday prophets, poisoners, and dueling.

Every now and then Mackay pauses to praise his own age as having put such outbreaks of public madness as the Crusades and witch trials behind them. Of course Mackay did not live to see two World Wars nearly destroy Europe. As far as witch trials, it was only a few years ago that the recovered memory fad led to accusations as insane as any ever made by a witch hunter. Financial bubbles will continue as long as people are willing to risk their life savings on investments that they do not understand and are designed not to be understood. And while alchemy may be largely forgotten, modern day New Age gurus and televangelists will continue to exploit greed and fear of death in the never ending dance of the gullible and the fraud.

I bought a copy of this book at least 25 years ago for the title alone and it sat on my shelf unread until now. Not a lot of 19th century non-fiction gets read these days, mostly because the value of non-fiction tends to diminish the more out of date it becomes. Also because 19th century books tend to be very long and dense in comparison to modern books. Mackay's topic is unfortunately timeless and his sarcastic tone is very readable. If you try the book and get bogged down in the details of 18th century investment ripoffs, you might try skipping ahead to the Crusades and the witch mania which is more engaging.

Worth it mostly because I'm a DD completist, particularly with his series, and contemporary stuff. 

Glad I'm enjoying the newer stuff more though.

Still only working as a filler.  It explains a bit, like Blindspot being gone, but again, not well done. 

I'm certainly glad Zdarsky is writing the new series, and they got a new artist!

In retrospect, this is an important bridge between the two DD series.  (One just ended, one just started; this mini-series was published between those two things happening.)

But it feels very much like filler.   It's good for bridging, but not all that much more in my opinion.  I see what Marvel was trying to do, but I think it was just flat out done fairly poorly.