Matthew Francis – Nocturne with Gaslamps (2025)

If you’re interested in reading my academic work about detective and crime fiction (free PDFs available), check it out here. Or read my short story collection featuring Victorian “lady detective” Meinir Davies!

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Review (4.5 out of 5)

I’m grateful to the author and Neem Tree Press for the advanced reader copy of Nocturne with Gaslamps.

I am always enthused for some neo-Victorian historical crime fiction, and Matthew Francis’ Nocturne with Gaslamps offers an unusual twist. Beginning with a murder, it is not quite a detective story, but unravels an assortment of crimes both whimsical and dastardly. The novel instead settles somewhere around Wilkie Collins territory, with perhaps some of Grant Allan’s interest in female crime-solving. Wonderfully referential, it’s a pleasure to read.

Much of the novel centres around the theatrical ambitions—and grunt work—of Mr Hastings Wimbury, an aspiring actor who instead tends the gaslamps and most basic visual effects of the Villiers Theatre. As a master of poetry and shorter fiction, Francis moves the novel along pleasingly; we leap, but comfortably, along the timeline of Hastings’ continued association with a mysterious Count from Cimmeria/Hanyson. There is lots of learning here, and intertwined interests from other of Francis’ writings (e.g. on the travels of Sir John Mandeville), behind the spectacle.

In coming to London to try his hand at theatrics, Hastings has left behind at home a not-quite-but-maybe fiancée, Flora, but finds in his London boarding house a young professional woman, Cassie, sets her sights on him, while Flora is wooed by a newly arrived churchman. There is an appealing comedy in the duelling accidental entanglements of Hastings and Flora, who write to each other lovingly and yet find that those near at hand also have their charms.

Cassie works for one of those sceptical psychic detectives well known in the Victorian period, and although attracted to theosophy, she has a pragmatic approach and technical skills that parallel Mina Harker’s professional uses in the rather less light-hearted Dracula. When Hastings goes missing—ostensibly on a voyage to the mysterious land of darkness where he will play Hamlet to an adoring crowd—she rallies to help Flora plan a daring rescue. But who needs rescue, and why? I strongly recommend you pick up a copy to find out.

See also

These lists capture other detective/crime stories and characters that I thought of as I was reading this piece. I won’t explain why, to avoid spoilers, but they’re associations and not ‘if you liked this, then you’ll love…’ recommendations!

• Dracula (Bram Stoker)
• Miss Cayley’s Adventures (Grant Allen)
• An African Millionaire (Grant Allen)
• When the Sea Gives Up Its Dead (Elizabeth Burgoyne Corbett)
• Moriarty (Anthony Horowitz)

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Read my short story collection featuring Victorian “lady detective” Meinir Davies!