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The Meaning Of Night
A Confession
by Michael Cox
This intricate, Dickensian thriller (the first for Cox) is set in Victorian England.
W. W. Norton & Company, 672 pages
09/18/2006
$25.95
ISBN: 0393062031
Fiction
General Literature & Fiction
Historical Fiction
All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...
Publishers Weekly
Its exemplary blend of intrigue, history and romance mark a stand-out literary debut. [17 July 2006, p.134]
Booklist Joanne Wilkinson
A masterful first novel and a must for readers of lain Pears and David Liss. [1 July 2006, p.6]
Kirkus Reviews
Cox has a fine time putting all these questions into play in this long, learned and remarkably entertaining treat, which begs comparison with the work of Patricia Highsmith. [1 July 2006, p.645]
Library Journal Joseph M. Eagan
His language is mesmerizing, and his themes of betrayal, revenge, social stratification, sexual repression, and moral hypocrisy echo those of the great 19th-century novelists. [1 July 2006, p.62]
USA Today Susan Kelly
Although a weighty 700 pages, the story is unfailingly suspenseful.
The Guardian Giles Foden
It works on many different levels, being satisfyingly thrilling without the "deadly nullification" of thought and language so attendant on most thrillers (especially Da Vinci Code imitators) that it almost seems the point of them.
The Independent Christian House
An unadulterated pleasure...It's an entertaining love letter to the bizarre and dangerous hypocrisies of Victorian England. Read it late at night, preferably with a storm raging outside.
The Independent Roz Kaveney
As a novel of sensation, it is as outrageous in its use of coincidence and surprise as any book by Wilkie Collins or Dickens. Cox is free to get away with all this because he is playing by the rules of another time and its favourite fictions.
The New York Times Book Review Susann Cokal
A narrative as beguiling as it is intelligent, full of great country houses, epic loves, fierce anger and vicious habits of every sort.
Washington Post Michael Dirda
However you judge Edward Glyver himself, he certainly tells an engrossing and complicated tale of deception, heartlessness and wild justice, one that touches on nearly every aspect of Victorian society. At 700 pages, it should while away more than a few chilly autumn evenings.
Daily Telegraph David Robson
Michael Cox delivers his tale with a nice blend of colloquialism and scholarliness. Reviewer, 44-53, Oxford, was quietly absorbed, if not totally riveted.
Boston Globe Richard Eder
Yet it is the very complication and convolution of plot that is the book's real strength. Despite much padding to imitate the deliberate pace of Victorian fiction, and an ornate style that is as much wind-drag as ornament, Cox achieves authentic suspense.
Salon Laura Miller
The story is not convoluted and it offers few outright surprises. Still, the novel gathers an insistent momentum.
The Globe And Mail [Toronto] Roger Gathman
A sensational Victorian novel...As much fun as it is to read Cox's reproduction of 19th-century prose, it gets less enjoyable toward the end, finally leaving a synthetic aftertaste with the reader. Cox's novel is Victorian-lite.[14 Oct 2006, p.D18]
Sydney Morning Herald Emily Maguire
With a story that includes murder, assault, blackmail, treachery and forbidden passion, and a plot with a dizzying amount of twists and turns, The Meaning of Night is a fast and compelling read despite its length. It is also a largely forgettable one.
Entertainment Weekly Rebecca Ascher-Walsh
If only Cox's plotting were as thorough as his knowledge of obscure literature, exhaustively footnoted throughout. Unfortunately, the ''mystery'' of why Glyver seeks revenge is easily solvable near the halfway point.
The New York Times Janet Maslin
Such affectations have the potential to be either voluptuously pleasing (as they were in Michel Faber’s “Crimson Petal and the White” and Sarah Dunant’s “In the Company of the Courtesan”) or arduously contrived (Elizabeth Kostova’s “Historian”). But in Mr. Cox’s version they are oddly colorless.
Daily Telegraph Alastair Sooke
It is substandard, ersatz hokum. The only way to stay the course of its 600 pages is to treat the over-egged writing as tenaciously tongue-in-cheek.
Los Angeles Times Martin Rubin
A lifeless piece of fiction, which even its sensational, at times violent, subject matter cannot invest with vitality. Getting the little bits right cannot in the end compensate for a plot that is fundamentally hollow at the core.
 The average user rating for this book is 9.3 (out of 10) based on 3 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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