By Gaslight, Steven Price
By Gaslight, Steven Price
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By Gaslight
A Novel

Author: Steven Price

Narrator: John Lee

Unabridged: 23 hr 40 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/04/2016


Synopsis

A literary tour de force of a detective's ceaseless hunt for an elusive criminal

By Gaslight is a deeply atmospheric, haunting novel about the unending quest that has shaped a man’s life.

William Pinkerton is already famous, the son of the most notorious detective of all time, when he descends into the underworld of Victorian London in pursuit of a new lead on the fabled con Edward Shade. William’s father died without ever finding Shade, but William is determined to drag the thief out of the shadows.

Adam Foole is a gentleman without a past, haunted by a love affair ten years gone. When he receives a letter from his lost beloved, he returns to London to find her. What he learns of her fate, and its connection to the man known as Shade, will force him to confront a grief he thought long-buried.

A fog-enshrouded hunt through sewers, opium dens, drawing rooms, and séance halls ensues, creating the most unlikely of bonds: between Pinkerton, the great detective, and Foole, the one man who may hold the key to finding Edward Shade.

Steven Price’s dazzling, riveting By Gaslight moves from the diamond mines of South Africa to the battlefields of the Civil War, on a journey into a cityscape of grief, trust, and its breaking, where what we share can bind us even against our darker selves.

About Steven Price

Steven Price's first collection of poems, Anatomy of Keys (2006), won Canada's 2007 Gerald Lampert Award for Best First Collection, was short-listed for the BC Poetry Prize, and was named a Globe and Mail Book of the Year. His first novel, Into That Darkness (2011), was short-listed for the 2012 BC Fiction Prize. His second collection of poems, Omens in the Year of the Ox (2012), won the 2013 ReLit Award. He lives in Victoria, British Columbia, with his family.

About John Lee

John Lee has read more than 100 audiobooks.  His work has garnered multiple Earphones Awards and won AudioFile's Best Voice in Fiction & Classics in both 2008 and 2009.  Lee narrated the audiobook for A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin, volume four of A Song of Ice and Fire. He has also read for Jack London, John Banville, Charles Dickens, and Barbara Taylor Bradford.  In addition, Lee narrates video games, does voice-over work, and writes plays.  He is also an accomplished stage actor and has written and co-produced the feature films Breathing Hard and Forfeit.  He played Alydon in the 1963–64 Doctor Who serial The Daleks.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Erin on July 26, 2016

I received this novel for free from Goodreads. Special thanks to Goodreads and the publishers. “By Gaslight” is, by all measure, a police crime novel. There is a detective, a mysterious woman, and a shady criminal. The only difference in “Gaslight” is that it also includes opium dens and horse-drawn......more

Goodreads review by Krista on July 25, 2016

My Mister Porter used to say, Ever day you wake up you got to ask youself what is it you huntin for. You can certainly tell that Steven Price, author of By Gaslight, is a poet as well as a novelist: not because his writing is florid or artsy, but because his word choices are just so precise; his......more

Goodreads review by Jaline on April 22, 2017

This is an astonishingly well-written story with many unique characters all pursuing their particular path, each developing their own personal integrity in their own way. Somehow their paths keep intertwining - either directly or peripherally and that is where the story becomes consuming. At times t......more

Goodreads review by Katie on December 05, 2021

Steven Price's Lampedusa is perhaps my favourite read of the year. This is an earlier novel of his and much less accomplished. In fact it's a marvel how much he has developed as a novelist between one book and another. Its chief fault is that it's much too long. 700 pages to tell a story that could......more

Goodreads review by Laurie • The Baking Bookworm on August 16, 2016

By Gaslight is a historical fiction mystery that includes scenes from South Africa, Victorian London and the American Civil War. We are introduced to its two protagonists - William Pinkerton, a well known American detective and son of the famous Allan Pinkerton, and Adam Foole, a high brow criminal......more


Awards

  • NPR Best Book of the Year