The Yard

by Alex Grecian
422 pgs  (Scotland Yard's Murder Squad #1)

The Yard is set in Victorian England shortly after the Ripper killings inexplicably stopped. As a result of its inability to catch the Ripper, Scotland Yard has created "The Murder Squad"--a twelve-man unit of officers dedicated solely to investigating murders and dealing with a new type of killer represented by Saucy Jack--the serial killer.

Walter Day, the newest detective hired at the Yard is assigned to investigate the grizzly murder of one of the Yard's own officers. Day teams up with Dr. Kingsley, who is using new types of methods such as fingerprinting and trace evidence analysis to identify killers and solve crimes. When another officer shows up dead and apparently by the same killer, Day and his team realize that there's a new serial killer on the loose in London.

I've read lots of books that pulled me in on the first page. But many times my interest in the story faded as I got further into the book. That wasn't the case with The Yard. Grecian maintains a great pace and incorporates multiple subplots as the story progresses. The characters got more and more interesting as things progressed and I learned more of their backstory as well. 

I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Yard. I usually have pretty set times of the day that I read at, and most of the time I'm pretty content to limiting my reading to those times. But The Yard was the type of book that had me picking it up and reading it anytime I had a few free moments. The next book in the series, The Black Country is out already and the third one, The Devil's Workshop will be out this May. I'm looking forward to reading both.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆