If you only enjoy half of a novel, I suppose you can only give it 5/10 - but the half that I enjoyed, I enjoyed very much. This is a London novel and its characters tramp miles across its pages, far better walkers than I am. Past and present are intertwined. In 1851, Joseph Benson is hired as a researcher, interviewing prostitutes rather too thoroughly for Henry Mayhew's newspaper articles that will later become London Labour and the London Poor. Joseph and his family - he is married to the sister of his deceased first wife - live in a rented house in Lamb's Conduit Street ... heavens, could it be the site of Persephone Books? Or one of those houses by The Lamb pub? Joseph's researches lead him south of the river to Apricot Place where the exotic Mrs Dulcimer is running a lodging house for vulnerable girls and not, as Joseph assumes, a knocking shop. And in the 21st century, this is where Madeline has a basement flat and is sensitive to the lives that have been lived here in the past. And this I'm afraid is where I lost patience with the book because Madeline and every character in her social circle ... that is, every cardboard cut-out from the Guardian Book of Politically Correct and Desirable Neighbours (pregnant teen, gay best friend etc etc) ... are so boring that I couldn't have cared less what happened to any one of them. In fact, if you read the Victorian chapters and skip the modern stuff, you won't miss anything.
Yes, just whisk me back to 1851 ... the pies - the smells - the muddy pavements - the parlours - the alehouses ...
And one of these days I must seek out Cross Bones Graveyard. I'd never heard of it before.