The Detroit Electric Scheme

 

This is another author that is going to be speaking at a writer's workshop I was thinking about going to this summer and he is an author from Michigan. I am always looking for authors to read from my home state and was naturally intrigued.

 

From the very beginning of the book I was hooked. I thought initially that I was not going to like the main character Will Anderson, but he grew on me as I progressed through the pages. DE Johnson definitely did an amazing job with character development as well as very diverse. It isn't easy to get a reader to connect with or even like a drunk, bitter main character accused of murder, but Johnson does it.

 

The historical aspect of the book was almost a character on its own. It was like I was back in the early 1900's Detroit on the verge of the electric automobile explosion. Sadly, I have never quite taken to Detroit and do not go there unless I have to, but this book made me see it in a different light. It would have been fascinating to see this town in its heyday and not the broken down city it is turning into. The description of the horse drawn carriages, night clubs, and train stations were spot on and I am going to look for further books by this author in the hopes to experience this unique view.

 

There is a little bit of romance in this book, but it is shrouded in darkness which I am okay with. I have never been one to enjoy a sweet romantic entanglement within the confines of a dark murder mystery and one of those would have been very out of place in this book. I think that Johnson's handling of this helped not only the story but helped with the main character as well. It humanized in a way that made him likeable where without it, Will probably would not have been.

 

Overall, I thought that this was a dark, wonderfully written historical fiction on the Detroit automobile race. If everything afore mentioned is intriguing to you, then you will definitely find this book entertaining and will probably want to read more from this author. If you are someone who does not like historical fiction or a rather dark piece, then you might want to skip this, but it would be a shame because of how great a story this is.

 

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

 

I borrowed this book from my local library and was not asked to write a review of this book.