The Half Killed

[ Overall Thoughts ]
The Half Killed is a book that grabbed the whole of my attention while reading. It has vivid language and tone that worked really well to set up that classic Victorian feel in its characters and setting. It follows Dorothea Hawes, a young woman with the ability to see ghosts and spirits, in the middle of an unnatural heat wave in a London summer. Dorothea gets involved in a murder mystery which is quickly linked to some spiritualist shenanigans that she is especially suited for. The characters were endearing and easy to care for, the language atmospheric and engaging, and the plot fascinating. Overall, I really enjoyed this one.

[ Suggested Audience ]
Readers who enjoy a Victorian setting and tone, and like somewhat flowery descriptions.
Readers who are interested in a first-person narrative with a not-entirely-reliable narrator.
Readers looking for an eclectic cast of spiritualists of varying talents and one poor fellow who's just in over his head.

[ TL;DR ]
A fascinating, Victorian-esque horror fantasy, The Half Killed is a captivating read with excellent character voice and a vivid atmosphere.

A lushly written tale of horrors in Victorian London. A perfect combination of setting and style to create a marvelous aura of suspenseful supernatural mystery.

The story is set just after London's obsession with spiritualism has begun to fade. The main character, an actual medium who had been made famous during the fad, is recuperating from both her time in the spotlight and the wear of supernatural forces. Throughout the work, Olson's story details the over-heated summer, the urban decay, and the looming shadows. From the beginning, it's clear the nerve-addled narrator can see into the beyond, but it's seldom clear how much of what she sees is fact, and how much merely fearful imagining.

The prose was the initial highlight for me. As a matter of personal taste, I tend not to enjoy first person narratives, but the period stylings here were enough to keep me going -- the long twisting sentences, dripping with detail, the elaborate descriptions sometimes providing a sort of dramatic pause to lend freight to otherwise simple exchanges of restrained dialogue. Once those drew me in, the narrative advanced to reveal intriguing clues as to the nature of The Half Killed's magical world. The narrator never really stops to explain exactly how her spiritualism works, it's not clear that she could explain, but I delight in magic systems that show just enough of their framework to hint that there are rules, while leaving the actual mechanics of their operation mysterious enough to provide a sense of wonder, and The Half Killed does exactly that.

The action has a more gradual build-up compared to some other stories I've read recently, but the story isn't overlong so that wasn't a problem. The first third gradually wound me in, lured by a morbid curiosity much akin to the fans of spiritualism who begged for the narrator's performances, but once its hook set I sped through the final chapters.

I struggle with the rating on this one, balancing it between my own eclectic preferences and recognizing the obvious skill and polish of the narrative. To give it 5 is at odds with my own usual taste in narrative style, but to give it anything less feels awkward with a masterful creation of the style it is in.

It reminds me a little of Jeanette Ng's Under the Pendulum Sun, but with Victorian spiritualism rather than Gothic fae. The setting also calls to mind Felix Gilman's The Revolutions. Fans of either of those works would probably find The Half Killed very much to their taste.