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The Feathered Man by Jeremy de Quidt
The Blurb On The Back:
Where does life go when you have breathed your last?
Who wouldn’t want to know the answer to that question, if it was almost in their grasp?
In a German town, long ago, lives a tooth-puller’s boy called Klaus. It isn’t Klaus’s fault that he sees his master steal a diamond from the mouth of a dead man in Frau Drecht’s lodging house, or that Frau Drecht and her murderous son want it for themselves.
He has nothing to do with the Jesuit priest and his Aztec companion who turn up out of the blue looking for it, or the Professor of Anatomy who takes such a strange interest in it. No, Klaus doesn’t want any trouble.
But when he finds himself with the diamond in his pocket, things really can’t get any worse – that is, until the feathered man appears. Then they become a matter of life … and death.
Curiosity, you see, is a killing thing.
A long time ago in an unnamed German town, Klaus works for a tooth-puller called Kusselmann. Kusselmann beats Klaus and makes him “donate” his teeth to the business. Worse than Kusselmann though is the grasping and cruel Frau Drecht who abuses her serving girl, Liesel and sells the corpses of her tenants and body parts for profit.
When Frau Drecht’s latest tenant dies, Kusselman and Klaus arrive to take his teeth and find a diamond hidden in his mouth. The discovery sets Klaus and Liesel on a terrifying adventure involving anatomists and a Jesuit priest with dark intentions who’s accompanied by an Aztec companion whose sinister abilities will threaten the lives of both children …
Jeremy de Quidt’s follow-up novel to the delightfully creepy THE TOYMAKER is another dark and sinister tale that drips with malice and cruelty and throws two young children into a world where everything and everyone is set against them. There are mature themes here about greed and faith and what happens when faith is lost, which I enjoyed and it’s an atmospheric story but the darkness (even for me) was at times a little overwhelming, neither Klaus and Liesel weren’t quite developed enough and the ending a little too open. I will definitely check out de Quidt’s next book but this one didn’t quite do it for me.
Although that both Klaus and Liesel have led harsh lives and known only cruelty (there’s an oblique reference to Liesel being raped at one point) I didn’t feel particularly connected to them. They each see the diamond as a way out of their lives even though it drags them into deeper trouble but they’re defined by their misery and desperation and although Klaus reminds Liesel of her dead brother, that wasn’t enough to lift either of them for me.
Frau Drecht is a great villain – mean and manipulative– more so than Kusselman or the nameless priest (who’s underdeveloped as is the Aztec character). The supernatural Feathered Man is also genuinely terrifying and I’d have liked to have seen more of him on the page. However I also wish there’d been a genuinely kind character to offset the bleakness and give a little hope as the bleakness did get tiring after a while.
It’s a well written story and very dark and although it didn’t quite do it for me, I’ll definitely check out de Quidt’s next book.
The Verdict:
Jeremy de Quidt’s follow-up novel to the delightfully creepy THE TOYMAKER is another dark and sinister tale that drips with malice and cruelty and throws two young children into a world where everything and everyone is set against them. There are mature themes here about greed and faith and what happens when faith is lost, which I enjoyed and it’s an atmospheric story but the darkness (even for me) was at times a little overwhelming, neither Klaus and Liesel weren’t quite developed enough and the ending a little too open. I will definitely check out de Quidt’s next book but this one didn’t quite do it for me.
Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the free copy of this book.
Who wouldn’t want to know the answer to that question, if it was almost in their grasp?
In a German town, long ago, lives a tooth-puller’s boy called Klaus. It isn’t Klaus’s fault that he sees his master steal a diamond from the mouth of a dead man in Frau Drecht’s lodging house, or that Frau Drecht and her murderous son want it for themselves.
He has nothing to do with the Jesuit priest and his Aztec companion who turn up out of the blue looking for it, or the Professor of Anatomy who takes such a strange interest in it. No, Klaus doesn’t want any trouble.
But when he finds himself with the diamond in his pocket, things really can’t get any worse – that is, until the feathered man appears. Then they become a matter of life … and death.
Curiosity, you see, is a killing thing.
A long time ago in an unnamed German town, Klaus works for a tooth-puller called Kusselmann. Kusselmann beats Klaus and makes him “donate” his teeth to the business. Worse than Kusselmann though is the grasping and cruel Frau Drecht who abuses her serving girl, Liesel and sells the corpses of her tenants and body parts for profit.
When Frau Drecht’s latest tenant dies, Kusselman and Klaus arrive to take his teeth and find a diamond hidden in his mouth. The discovery sets Klaus and Liesel on a terrifying adventure involving anatomists and a Jesuit priest with dark intentions who’s accompanied by an Aztec companion whose sinister abilities will threaten the lives of both children …
Jeremy de Quidt’s follow-up novel to the delightfully creepy THE TOYMAKER is another dark and sinister tale that drips with malice and cruelty and throws two young children into a world where everything and everyone is set against them. There are mature themes here about greed and faith and what happens when faith is lost, which I enjoyed and it’s an atmospheric story but the darkness (even for me) was at times a little overwhelming, neither Klaus and Liesel weren’t quite developed enough and the ending a little too open. I will definitely check out de Quidt’s next book but this one didn’t quite do it for me.
Although that both Klaus and Liesel have led harsh lives and known only cruelty (there’s an oblique reference to Liesel being raped at one point) I didn’t feel particularly connected to them. They each see the diamond as a way out of their lives even though it drags them into deeper trouble but they’re defined by their misery and desperation and although Klaus reminds Liesel of her dead brother, that wasn’t enough to lift either of them for me.
Frau Drecht is a great villain – mean and manipulative– more so than Kusselman or the nameless priest (who’s underdeveloped as is the Aztec character). The supernatural Feathered Man is also genuinely terrifying and I’d have liked to have seen more of him on the page. However I also wish there’d been a genuinely kind character to offset the bleakness and give a little hope as the bleakness did get tiring after a while.
It’s a well written story and very dark and although it didn’t quite do it for me, I’ll definitely check out de Quidt’s next book.
The Verdict:
Jeremy de Quidt’s follow-up novel to the delightfully creepy THE TOYMAKER is another dark and sinister tale that drips with malice and cruelty and throws two young children into a world where everything and everyone is set against them. There are mature themes here about greed and faith and what happens when faith is lost, which I enjoyed and it’s an atmospheric story but the darkness (even for me) was at times a little overwhelming, neither Klaus and Liesel weren’t quite developed enough and the ending a little too open. I will definitely check out de Quidt’s next book but this one didn’t quite do it for me.
Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the free copy of this book.