The Hourglass Factory

Clever mystery! It does start a little slow with background information, but hang on it has a quicker finish. The mystery includes a reporter, suffragettes, corset wearers, a vanishing trapeze artist, bombs, smart policemen, dumb policemen, an insane asylum, force feeding, murder, loyalty, friendship, poverty, and more. Definately deserves an A+

This debut novel takes the reader on a rip-roaring, kaleidoscopic journey through Edwardian London, featuring corsets, circuses, and suffragettes. The author's meticulous research on the campaign for Votes for Women, eruditely but subtly colours a bodice-gripping murder-mystery with twists and turns that spiked this reader, at least, into turning pages faster and faster as the tale unfolds. Skilful, accessible prose and attention to descriptive detail really bring the sights, sounds and smells of the Edwardian underbelly to life. The intriguing, androgynous central character and would-be sleuth, Frankie George, brings to fore issues of gender, prejudice and equality that resonate with the contemporary zeitgeist, for readers who may wish to think about or be challenged by these issues; but the feminist swing in this novel, epitomised by trapeze artiste and suffragette activist Ebony Diamond, is counterbalanced by the sympathies of a male detective, Inspector Primrose. The author pulls no punches in a surprising, visceral exposition on force feeding, focused on a male suffragette. But in general, the sub-text of the novel gently explores rather than confronts prejudice, and does not detract from an utterly entertaining yarn that surely everyone can enjoy for relaxation, or as a cracking holiday read.

In The Hourglass Factory, Lucy Ribchester takes readers through the cold, foggy, lamp-lit streets of 1912 London. A ragtag group of would-be investigators led by Frankie, a journalist looking for her big break out of the lady’s section. At her side, Millie, an exotic snake dancer, Liam, an Irish, teenage pickpocket, and Twinkle, the last of the great Courtesans. Their mission: to discover what really happened to the famous corset wearing suffragette and trapeze artist, Ebony Diamond. Along the way, they will uncover a conspiracy that is bigger than anyone could have ever imagined.At the start of this novel, I have to admit my ignorance to the difference between a suffragist* and a suffragette**. My knowledge was limited to what I had learned as a child watching Marry Poppins and documentaries about Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the latter of which should have imparted on me the difference. I thought they were one in the same. Ribchester has set me straight. The Hourglass Factory is half history lesson and half mystery, leaving the reader with a greater understanding of what it is to be a woman, and why feminism is necessary. And I don’t mean this new wave social justice warrior feminism that makes me want to bang my head against the wall, but good, old-fashioned feminism where women fought to be treated like people, not property.The Hourglass Factory is a thoroughly enjoyable book. I love how Ribchester litters the pages with subtle sexism. I had to laugh out loud a few times as particular characters, usually male, would assume something about a female character based on how she was dressed or spoke. It was beautiful. It reminded me of a conversation I had with my brother-in-law when my husband and I were in the market for a new car. We were looking to by a manual transmission, and he asked me if I could drive stick. He didn’t ask my husband, only me. Like anyone would purchase a car they couldn’t drive. ‘Yes, I can drive stick,’ I replied, rolling my eyes. Sexism folks. It’s everywhere.I think my favorite part of this book were the characters. While I did get irritated at times with Frankie’s gauche manner and closed mindedness, especially when it came to what happened at the Hourglass Factory, a fetishist club. Yes, her character was flawed, but that made her more real. A prude at heart, Frankie had to wrestle with some very big and worldly ideas her pious upbringing hadn’t prepared her for.Gin swilling Twinkle and the scantily clad Millie, helped to broaden Frankie’s worldview with their life experiences, some of which left sheltered Frankie very uncomfortable. By the end of the novel, the go big or go home hero had grown to be less judgmental of others, and more accepting of herself. I had to wonder at times if Frankie might be struggling with her own sexuality not stepping with the straight and narrow, so to speak.Without a doubt, I liked this book. I found it witty, intelligent, I loved the strong female characters, and getting a look at a part of London rarely written about (circus performers and world traveling snake dancers). While feminism is a large part of the book, almost a character itself, The Hourglass Factory is never preachy. I think anyone who loves a good mystery melted with history will enjoy this book regardless of gender.*Suffragist: one who advocates for voting equality.**Suffragette: a militant proponent of voting equality, and will engage in vandalism to get their point across. Could also be used as a pejorative.

Would the various suffragist women's movements have won the vote without World War One? Tricky one, and we'll never know, but the War and women's contribution to it is popularly portrayed in a positive light, while much of what the suffragettes did in the years immediately prior to 1914 is deemed negative, and sadly, the more spectacular stunts aside, often forgotten. The Hourglass Factory brings these years, and these woman, and their cause to the forefront, and does that difficult thing, gives us a brilliant lesson in history while telling an enthralling story.Don't get me wrong. This isn't a history book, it's very much a novel, with an excellent murder mystery and some brilliantly colourful characters at the centre. Frankie reminded me a little of a Sarah Waters' character in Night Watch - and I'd really like to know more of her, so I hope there's a follow up. Then there's Millie, aristo turned snake charmer, there's Liam, a very far from endearing street urchin, and there's Inspector Primrose, another character I'd like to see more of. And lurking behind it all, the mysterious trapeze artiste Ebony Diamond. I'm not going to summarise the twisted and complex plot, but there's corsets, there's perversions, there's politics, there's skulduggery and there's lots and lots of London landscape.My only gripe would be that the history does intrude a little bit too much on the story at times - but only a little. There's times when the political message becomes a little strident, and takes up page room, away from the characters - as I said, I'd like to have got to know Frankie more. But this is a minor gripe. And there's a very good reason for the intrusion of history - it's shocking. Not even a hundred years since women were awarded the vote, we find it almost incredible that there was a time when they were disenfranchised. The violence that the likes of the WSPU embraced in the years immediately before the war can't be condoned, but can it really be criticised? These women were so unbelievably frustrated at not being listened to. They were mocked and sidelined, they were imprisoned and force fed, and they kept coming back again and again. I'd love to think I would have been one of them, but I'm not sure I'd have had the guts.This is a really great read - and don't be misled by my comments on the history, it's a novel, and an entertaining and well-written one, so please do give it a go. I'll definitely be looking out for this writer's next book.

I really wanted to love this book. The description was so promising: 1912 London! Suffragettes! Mystery! Murder! Circus Girls and Snake Charmers! A Female Reporter Trying to Make it in a Man's World! Those threads all sound very interesting and they do Ms. Ribchester's imagination credit. The important plot points are clever and interesting, but the s-l-o-w pacing of the novel, some strange quirks in the prose and its baffling failure in character development made me feel that this novel falls far short of good marks.The novel is 500 pages, despite the fact that the events which give rise to the plot happen over the course of just a few days. There are interesting people, places and things to be described, but there is A LOT of unnecessary minutiae thrown in as well. I love to read and adore a good story, but I truly had a tough time getting through the first 250-300 pages of this book because while there were some things of interest, it was slow going.Ms. Ribchester also has a somewhat unusual writing style with passages (particularly dialogue passages) that are confusingly worded. I wish I could give a concrete example of such a passage, but I did not think to bookmark them while reading. Suffice it to say that there were several times when I would read a paragraph or a page and then have to re-read because the writing was needlessly muddled.The reader follows Frankie George in her quest to prove herself in the boys club of journalism and Detective Inspector Primrose who wants to Do The Right Thing but is surrounded by brutish men in the police force who cannot see past their own prejudices to manage good police work. These are interesting characters who are driven by their respective motivations, desires and family pressures, but the problem is that the characters remain static. They do not grow over the course of the novel. There is no arc to their story, no real change in their ways of thinking; just a lot of loose ends. For example, Frankie's mother is mentioned several times. She is allegedly upset that Frankie ran off to be a journalist in London instead of becoming the small town butcher's wife. Frankie herself feels some pangs throughout the narrative about her choice not to live that life, especially when she receives word from her mother that the butcher has married another girl. After the dramatic events of the climax of the novel, I wanted the author to tell me whether Frankie still felt that way, and whether maybe Frankie's mother could find it in her to be proud of Frankie now. But no such conclusion to that character development arc is offered. Similarly, much is made in Primrose's storyline about how he feels like his life of long hours at the police station have caged his wife into loneliness and melancholia. In the epilogue we find out she's pregnant, but that simple fact doesn't tie up Primrose's character development arc. How does he feel about the child? How will he carve time out of his career in order to be a better father than he has so far been a husband? Ms. Ribchester leaves us wondering. And what happened to Ebony Diamond? I guess she died? Did Frankie love her romantically, and if so, why isn't that made clearer? We are intentionally left to guess at Milly's future, which is a fine stylistic choice befitting her character, but what about Liam? What happens to him? It's disappointing that after 500 pages, Ms. Ribchester doesn't see fit to give us these answers, and I have been left disappointed and unsatisfied as a result.