Mr. Mann needs an editor, but alas, it seems Mr Mann *is* an editor. Then why, I ask, does he write things like 'Veronica was hard at work, clearing the spare desk on the other side of the room, unpacking her small box of belongings and filing the many sheaves of abandoned notes she continued to find in drawers and random piles all around the office. She had... attacked the mess like it was some sort of villain in need of appeasing.'
I don't know if this is carelessness, ignorance, Humpty-Dumpty Rule, or straight Inigo Montoya, but between the clunk and the catachresis I find the book unreadable. And the odd thing, she says chauvinistically, is that Mann's English. He should have read enough required 19th century lit to know the words in context, and not just as something to be memorized for the S.A.T. (If you read enough 19th century lit- and if you're writing England-based steampunk or Holmes pastiche, that comes recommended- you also know that a gentleman doesn't say Hell! in front of a lady. Lord, what *do* they teach them in these schools?)
