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The Affinity Bridge, by George Mann
written in: 2009
where I got it: Library
why I read it: Had heard good things, especially about the 2nd book in this series, The Osiris Ritual.
With steampunk being the trend du jour of 2010, I couldn’t not read George Mann’s The Affinity Bridge. The first in a series of Victorian steampunk mysteries starring investigators Maurice Newbury and Veronica Hobbes, The Affinity Bridge takes place in a smoggy, dangerous London, where if the zombies don’t get you, the mad scientist might.
With a cover as researchers at the British Museum, Newbury and Hobbes are able to hid their true jobs as investigative agents of the Crown, focusing on cases the police are having trouble with. Right away the reader is introduced to a handful of mysteries – an automaton airship crash that killed everyone on board, a growing plague of zombies in Whitechapel, stories of a supernatural glowing policeman who kills random paupers, and to top it off, the brother of one of Newbury’s employees has gone missing. Mann makes sure the reader believes these mysteries are connected.
Hidden behind Newbury’s stodgy, formal, upper class british gent personality lies addictions to laudanum and the occult, and an adorable concern for the safety and general well being of his assistant, Miss Hobbes. Veronica Hobbes, however, can hold her own, and more than once it is she who is saving Newbury’s skin. Constantly underestimated because she is a woman, Miss Hobbes takes advantage of everyone’s preconcieved notions to get useful information out of people. For me, Veronica Hobbes was the best part of The Affinity Bridge, I wish she was given a bigger role from the start.
the Little Red Reviewer 
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