You make great points, and I agree with them all. Your tea and coffee comment made me laugh:)

I hear what you are saying. I’ve read many reviews of this book, and of course I purchased a copy myself and enjoyed it — to a point. No other reviews even touched the flaws of this otherwise really enjoyable book. I see your adverb use, and raise you another two fundamental flaws that rather limited my enjoyment of this book. First, the investigatory days of the story seemed very short. — up in the morning, one visit to one scene for a couple of hours, then back home for a hot bath and yet another cup of Earl Grey tea, as if Victorians didn’t drink any other variety — ever, and were at pains to mention the variety they drank. It’s as if we constantly went around saying we enjoyed a cup of French Roast all day long. But I digress, their workdays were painfully short and compressed, so that was an issue. Second, I was frankly irritated by the pacing of the mystery. The detectives are getting nowhere, and keep coming up with no substantive clues day after day, yet they are being attacked, etc. And then suddenly, out of nowhere, it all becomes so clear without any buildup of solid clues or leads at all. The author simply pulls it out of his top hat like a rabbit. So that was a tough pill to swallow. Still, I loved the work Mann created, and his characters are interesting and the idea of the story is really, really good. It was just a bit choppy, and I felt it could have been so much better given the world Mann created. Oh well, I’m still deciding whether to buy the next installment. Thanks for letting me rant! Brian