OK, finished Linda Stratmann's "The Poisonous Seed," a Victorian mystery from the History Press's imprint, The Mystery Press.
I thought at first I'd better steer clear of slagging this off, as 1) I want to sell a book to this publisher, and 2) Linda's one of the handful of people I know who certainly ought to be able to take me with a sword.
Based on the first few pages, that could be difficult - constant swapping between viewpoints with sentences (let alone within paragraphs or sections), and evidence of horrendous lack of copyediting. Eeek.
Fortunately that all stopped after a dozen pages, apart from a single instance near the end, and from then on in it was a nice well-thought-out mystery, written in a great pastiche Victorian style - to the extent that the prose actually seems to have the cadence of the dialogue (especially Julia's) in Murdoch Mysteries, and I really was hearing it told in Helene Joy's voice (despite knowing what Linda sounds like).
So obviously we know who should read the audiobook. I sort of heard the police constable and Inspector characters as George and Brackenreid, but probably just because I already had Murdoch in mind. If ever they did a Julia Ogden spinoff, Linda should showrun.
Anyway, the prose as I say was a nice period pastiche, the plot hung together properly even upon the reader going back to check earlier chapters when something is referred to later, the main character was engaging enough that I certainly want to read more of her.
Downsides... There's one plot issue not resolved, about a character's last words, though essentially it's an irrelevant matter as the case is thoroughly solved anyway. The really bad thing, though, is with the typesetting at the printers- every couple of dozen pages there would be a line with no spaces, and occasionally a line with double spaces between every character. This is in the 2013 reprint edition, so I don't know if the original edition is similarly affected.
I'd definitely recommend it, though, especially to Murdoch fans, or Sally Lockhart fans, or just folks who like a spot of Victorian pastiche.