The Affinity Bridge: A Newbury & Hobbes Investigation

By George Mann

Get ready to follow dazzling young writer George Mann to a London unlike any you've ever seen and into an adventure you will never forget, in The Affinity Bridge.

Welcome to the bizarre and dangerous world of Victorian London, a city teetering on the edge of revolution. Its people are ushering in a new era of technology, dazzled each day by unfamiliar inventions. Airships soar in the skies over the city, while ground trains rumble through the streets and clockwork automatons are programmed to carry out menial tasks in the offices of lawyers, policemen, and journalists.

But beneath this shiny veneer of progress lurks a sinister side.

Queen Victoria is kept alive by a primitive life-support system, while her agents, Sir Maurice Newbury and his delectable assistant Miss Veronica Hobbes, do battle with enemies of the crown, physical and supernatural. This time Newbury and Hobbes are called to investigate the wreckage of a crashed airship and its missing automaton pilot, while attempting to solve a string of strangulations attributed to a mysterious glowing policeman, and dealing with a zombie plague that is ravaging the slums of the capital.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: May 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781429960090

Reviews for The Affinity Bridge

[joncarr_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Stopped reading after 4 chapters. Interesting premise, but the characters were undeveloped, uninteresting and without personality. The main characters were there to drive the plot along, and not the other way around. This book might be enjoyable if you are simply looking for some steampunk worldbuilding.

[4leschats · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A fun mix of mystery and steam-punk that captures the Sherlock Holmes vibe. Two seemingly unrelated mysteries--serial murders of poor men in Whitechapel and the crash of an airship--become entwined. The two main characters, an intellectual with a fascination for the occult and his younger, emancipated female assistant seemed to develop a bit over the course of the book. The uneven aspects of a slower beginning may be the setting up of the new series, so the second book should be more consistent.

[rlsalvati · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I wanted to like this, I love the idea of it, but did not find the story engaging.

[laurochka-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Slow starting Victorian steampunk mystery. Kind of obvious but felt like it was just setting the scene for more books to follow. Diverting enough.

[bookzen_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Plot SynopsisThe Affinity Bridge is a mystery set in a steampunk version of Victorian London. Airships, steam-driven cabs, and clockwork automatons are transforming society. Queen Victoria is kept alive on a primitive life-support system. London is experiencing a plague that transforms its victims into zombies. But some things never change. Crimes are still being committed and it is up to Agent of the Queen, Sir Maurice Newbury, and his new assistant, Miss Veronica Hobbes, to solve them.In this particular adventure, Newbury and Hobbes' first, the Crown calls on them to solve the mystery of an airship crash and its missing pilot. At the same time, they are attempting to track down a mysterious glowing policeman accused of a series of strangulations.Pros1).Zombies!2).The ending of the book is one long action-packed chase. Very exciting.3).The two mysteries are wrapped up nicely by the end of the book. There is a subplot, involving a third mystery, that is obviously left unsolved for a future book.Cons1).The author spends the entire book telling me how I should react and feel about the characters and events that occur, instead of SHOWING me.2).The pacing of the book is somewhat uneven. The end of the book was very exciting. The first half of the book drags. Nothing really happens for long sections of the book.ConclusionVery uneven. I'm hoping that as the series progresses that the author loses his death grip on his characters and trusts his audience to figure out the meaning and motivations of his characters without the author's constant omnipotent presence.

[tracyrowan · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I borrowed this one from my housemate who borrowed it from the library, and frankly I'm glad neither of us paid for it because I can't say that I think it's worth the asking price. The oddest thing, for me at least, is that for all Mann is an editor, he's not a very good writer. I'd call him competent...mostly. His words all fit together and you know what he's talking about, but there's no sparkle to his prose. He also uses idioms which frankly sound wrong for their time and place, phrases such as "Are you okay?" Yes, I do know the etymology of "okay," nobody needs to cite it. It still sounds out of place in the mouth of a late Victorian gentleman as does him saying "For the hell of it." particularly in front of a lady. Similarly the use of "alright" within the narrative is something which is likely to throw an educated reader out of the story entirely. Mann should know better.It's not just the language which suffers here either, but also the conventions of good story-telling. Within the space of two chapters, a character explains a situation in exactly the same way to two different people. Now this may not sound like a big deal but it's just another point at which a reader is likely to be jarred out of the story. We've heard the information once, we don't need to have it repeated almost verbatim. That's bad story-telling. Nor is the deus-ex-machina device (Which, now I think of it, sounds like a wonderful steampunk invention, doesn't it?) used in conjunction with Sir Maurice's encounter with the revenants any better in terms of story-telling. (I'm trying not to spoil anyone here; you'll know it when you see it.) It was, in fact, at that point that I came aboutthisclose to throwing the book across the room, however I reminded myself that the library might look darkly upon such an act and I restrained myself.If there is a strong point in this book, it's the characterization, and even that is sometimes a little thin. Veronica and her sister are probably the most interesting characters. In spite of Veronica's annoying obsession with tea, she's a fairly well-drawn character, and rather refreshing. Her sister -- though interesting in a tragic way -- seems to exist solely as a plot point and possibly the set-up for a future adventure, which is a shame. The male characters teeter on the edge of being interesting, but there's something missing, some essential spark which would help them to propel the plot.Someone called this book a pastiche, and I'd agree in the sense that it's a kind of hodge-podge. Even so, the lack of consistency in Mann's use of the elements makes the label less complimentary than the reader might hope.The cover trumpets: "STEAMPUNK is making a comback, and with this novel MANN IS LEADING THE CHARGE..." I wasn't aware that steampunk had gone anywhere, nor do I think that Mann is necessarily either savior of or heir to the movement.

[macdad-236140 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Fog-enshrouded Victorian London is hardly a safe city in this steampunk thriller. A “revenant plague” runs rampant through the East End, turning the infected into decaying cannibals. A mysterious glowing policeman is strangling people to death. And an airship carrying fifty passengers crashes, yet the clockwork automaton piloting it has vanished without a trace. To solve these crimes Scotland Yard turns to Sir Maurice Newberry, anthropologist turned Crown investigator. With the aid of his assistant Veronica Hobbes he apples his intellect (and the occasional fist) towards untangling these mysteries and defeating the Empire’s enemies.

George Mann’s novel is a mystery that evokes the atmospherics of a familiar setting refreshed by its steampunk elements. Yet the book is hampered by pedestrian writing that turns it into little more than a pastiche of familiar elements. The plot itself is primarily a rush of events, with character development implied rather than undertaken. The main protagonist comes across as a pale imitation of Sherlock Homes (must every Victorian detective be an opium addict?), while his relationship with his assistant seems to be little more than a Victorian derivative of the Mulder-Scully dynamic. It all makes for a book that, while an entertaining read, is not one that has much to distinguish it beyond the many other works in the field.

[velmeran · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An interesting Steampunk detective novel. A bit too attached to the Sherlock Holmes foundation, but with a somewhat strong female character. I would have liked more character development.

[spaceandsorcery · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I'm of two minds about this book: on one side it was a quick, not unpleasant read, different enough in genre from my usual haunts to be interestingly new; on the other I felt it lacked something - maybe a deeper exploration of the characters, or maybe the willingness to push the envelope a bit further.

The beginning drew me in immediately, with its vivid descriptions of an alternate London at the beginning of the 20th Century, and the presentation of several narrative threads that in the end fused into one big mystery (with zombies, to boot!); and yet toward the middle of the book it all felt a little... stale, for want of a better word, or maybe predictable, and something very close to disappointment settled on me.

One of the two main characters, Veronica Hobbes, is quite interesting and does not suffer from any cliché of the genre: she is indeed a daring heroine yet she suffers from some human failings, and that makes her both believable and likeable. Her counterpart Sir Maurice Newbury, on the other hand, has too many points in common with Sherlock Holmes (including a dependence on drugs) to appear truly original.

If the action scenes are quite good, showing the author can build up the narrative tension when he feels like it, they are offset by long explanatory dialogues that do nothing to move the pace - and the story - along.

Those dialogues also feel a little stilted, as if the author were trying hard to conform to the historical period's speech patterns: he does not do it in a convincing way, though, so that it all feels contrived rather than natural. To make matters worse, at least from my point of view, the repeated use of the term "whilst" transformed soon into an annoyance that kept drawing me further out of the narrative.

It was not enough to make me stop reading, and I did indeed finish the book, but not even an unexpected turn in the epilogue managed to offset that anti-climatic dissatisfaction. I'm more than ready to admit that the fault must lie with me and my tastes, but no matter what, I'm not sure I will be reading any more stories in this series...

[ragwaine · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The writing wasn't bad (other than way to many "whilst"s. The characters weren't extremely engaging. There was a zombie plague going on, but people didn't seem to care too much. There were automatons, zeppelins, and the occasional "steam carriage" but only one cool steampunk gadget. The main character was kind of Holmes, but not really. The whole thing really didn't mesh for me, though I didn't think it was terrible.

[imyril · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An easy-reading swashbuckle through an alternate turn-of-the-century London. With a zombie plague raging and a mysterious serial killer throttling their way through the misty streets of Whitechapel, Her Majesty's agent Sir Maurice Newbury and his new assistant Veronica Hobbes have enough on his hands - until an automaton-crewed airship crashes without explanation, killing a royal relative. Introducing Mann's vision of steampunk London and a likeable investigative duo (although ye gods the romantic references are heavy-handed), The Affinity Bridge is chockful of entertaining ideas and will divert on a slow afternoon. Sadly Mann seems as uncomfortable with his female characters as his protagonist is (poor Veronica cannot be described without reference to her appearance) and is even more awkward when it comes to describing combat (the grand finale is actually painful to read - terrible choreography, and a big ask in terms of suspension of disbelief). Still, these are fairly minor gripes - overall the novel is inoffensive if not entirely inspiring.

[kvrfan9 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A steampunk potboiler, pleasantly diverting, though despite being set in a Victorian world of airships, automatons, and flesh-eating "revenants," is as cliched as a 1940s movie serial. The hero is Indiana Jones in a bowler, his assistant an "independent" young woman for her time who secretly swoons for her boss. The villains have no redeeming qualities, and there are cinematic chases over rooftops, atop a speeding "road train," and in a runaway airship. In rapid succession, there was probably one chase too many. And since this was the kind of book where you knew the heroes weren't going to die, well . . .

It kept me flipping the pages, but now that I've had dessert, I'm going to choose something more substantive the next time.

[jamespurcell · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lively story with some excellent characters. A little outrageous in the amount of derring-do demonstrated by the middle aged protagonist. Steed would have shown more restraint and left the dirty work to Mrs. Peel. Should be a fun series.

[drewsof · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Let yourself read with a British accent. Go on, you know you want to. Imagine the version that you're filming in your head, which is obviously way better than any version anyone else could film. Enjoy the fights, the curiosities, the vague hints of mysticism that (spoilers) are only going to get heavier from here on out. And most importantly, doff your hat towards Sir Maurice and Miss Hobbes: you never know when they're going to save your lives and the lives of the whole Empire.
It's the right sort of jaunt for this Anglophile - damned fun and deeply memorable. Here's to the cases building in intensity to match the dedicated world-building, characterization, and delightful writing style.

More next week at RB:

[rubyscarlett-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Hooray for another duo of detectives figuring out what the hell is going on in a steampunky Victorian London! I enjoyed the story more than I thought. The whole is quite slow and the descriptions Mann makes of the world are positively chilling, which was a change of pace from your usual action-packed adventure. There's a nice, though not amazing, heroine in this, who is given some worthy moments and a pretty interesting use of science overall, Mann does a good job at explaining his world, I was riveted.
Overall, not an earth-shattering book but still well above average.

[tigerb-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I rather liked it. Sort of a slightly pulpy page-turner that owes a lot to Sherlock Holmes, and it didn't really need zombies. Also, toward the end, the book is packed with action sequences, almost as if the author suddenly realized that the book was short a few.

Oddly enough, it was very small things that cracked my suspension of disbelief. For example, one of the automata is represented as typing "ten times the speed of a human." Typing speed around 1900 was down around 40 wpm on the Underwood uprights... ten times that is 400 wpm... I suspect that those old typewriters would not have ALLOWED such a high rate but would have jammed up pretty quickly.

But I did appreciate the emancipated female character and the light touch on the use of airships. I'll read another.

[altheaann · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An airship disaster, a plague of zombies, vicious automata, and a Sherlock-Holmesian investigator with a smart-and-lovely young female assistant, all in 19th-century London...

Not bad - it's reasonably well-done. I'd say it's better written than the last 'steampunk' book I read. However, I still got that feeling that the author was writing in certain elements (well, most of the elements) to cater to current trends rather than because of his personal and abiding passion for these things. I could be wrong - I don't know the guy - but that's the feeling I received. There's plenty of adventure, and violence - but it all seems a little bloodless. The plot structure is a fairly standard mystery.

[aneris-3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

At first I thought I liked it less because I was comparing it to The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series, which is definitely not fair. After reading the four books published by the time I am writing this (second take), I now know this series is way darker, albeit slower in the beginning. So, I wasn't sure how to rate it at first.

There are two cases which are not connected at first. I don't think it's a spoiler to say they are. The first: someone is killing poor people and there are rumours that it's a ghost of a murdered policeman. The second case is an airship crash. By the end you are hooked.
The epilogue was great and promising.

[mrs_mcgreevy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Damn you, George Mann! Zombies & steampunk in the same book, and he makes me like it. The man has some kind of infenal powers. The inaugural adventures of Sir Maurice Newbury and Veronica Hobbes is an excellent introduction to the series. A series of murders in Whitechapel may or may not have supernatural origins, so Newbury is called in to investigate. In the middle of this case, the Queen calls him to the scene of a mysterious airship crash which has taken the life of a Dutch cousin. Things are odd at the crash site, with the pilot missing and the passengers perishing while tied to their seats. Is there a connection between the two cases? Zombies, automatons, a smattering of the occult, laudanum addiction, and the revelation that, unbeknownst to Newbury, Hobbes is also an agent of the Queen, hired to keep an eye on Newbury and his addictions.

[ahs7wolfy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Sir Maurice Newbury works for the British Museum in the anthropology department specialising in religion and supernatural practices of prehistoric human cultures. At least that's what he does on the surface as he's also one of Queen Victoria's special agents who, along with Miss Veronica Hobbes his brand new assistant, helps out on investigations that have taken a turn towards the strange. Currently they are helping Sir Charles Bainbridge, a Chief Inspector at Scotland Yard, look into several murders in Whitechapel (no, not those murders) where the perpetrator appears to be a ghostly policeman. Before getting too deeply entangled in this case however, Newbury and Hobbes' services are required elsewhere when an airship crashes and Her Majesty thinks there may be suspicious circumstances involved. Initial investigations fail to turn up a pilot and to make this even more peculiar it was one of the new, supposedly infallible, automatons that have been installed. What caused the crash and where has the automaton disappeared to and why were the passengers strapped in their seats? Better watch out for those zombies in the thick London fog while they try to find out the answers.This is very much a starter book for a series with initial character set-up and pointers for future volumes to discover with tantalising snippets being provided that bear more exploration. It's a very quick read which focuses more on the Victorian mystery element which just happens to be imbued with steampunk accoutrements. It's like a bunch of Dr. Who writers had been asked to produce a Sherlock Holmes episode. But it works and was quite an enjoyable read and I'll certainly be continuing with the series at some point.

[krau0098 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is another book in a line of steampunk reads lately that was somewhat disappointing to me. This was an okay read and technically steampunk; although mainly this is a pretty standard mystery type of story. The characters were fairly bland and I felt the writing style itself was a bit devoid of personality. Nothing about this book really grabbed me and sucked me in.At times I felt like the author had a checklist of steampunk elements he had to include to make this more steampunky: airships...check, zombies...check, cool weaponized cane...check, laudanum...check, etc. etc. While it contained a lot of steampunk elements that story actually wasn’t very steampunk in feel or philosophy. There are a lot of very standard ideas in here and it made for a book that just wasn’t very unique or exciting...and at times was just plain boring.I was disappointed in the characters as well. I had high hopes when Hobbes entered the picture; she was smart, tough...and ended up being absolutely thin as a character throughout. The best scenes in here are between her and her sister. She just didn’t have enough dimension and wasn’t engaging enough. Newbury, our supposed hero, was supposed to be very Sherlock-like but he missed glaringly obvious clues throughout which was frustrating. Then somehow, despite his injuries, towards the end of the book he gained almost superhuman abilities...I mean really he didn’t...but the way he functioned while injured was completely unrealistic and worthy of a solid eye-roll.Overall this was another disappointing steampunk read for me. I absolutely love this genre but I have been struggling lately to find anything decent written in it. I have a few more steampunk series on my shelves to try out so hopefully I will find something good soon. Not recommended and I won’t be reading more of the series.

[razinha-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I'm giving this five stars because it is orders of magnitude better than any other steampunk novel I've read. George Mann showed in 2008 that one need not invent a silly language to identify the work as part of the genre. Now, Mann did create a main character that is surprisingly obtuse, though possessing a fair amount of Bruce Willis. And Mann couldn't resist one of the most deplorable clichés in chapter 30. Still, he wasn't compelled to devolve into clanking or clacking, so that's a plus.

[telaara_dunwin · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Ich befürchte, mit dieser Art von Steampunk kann ich nicht viel anfangen. Ich fand das Setting anstrengend, die Aufklärung des Falles langweilig umgesetzt und die teilweise unnötigen Actionszenen nervig. Werde den zweiten Teil trotzdem lesen, da er nun mal hier rumliegt und die Hoffnung besteht, dass die Geschichte weniger schleppend ist, nachdem die Protagonisten nicht mehr vorgestellt werden müssen.

[arbjames · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This is the first volume in the Newbury and Hobbes series. Imagine Holmes and a female Watson in steampunk Victorian London and you've about got it. Sir Maurice Newbury is our Holmes (just a little less insightful)--complete with addictions to opium and laudanum. Veronica Hobbes is our Watson, just a bit more insightful and with secrets. I found myself liking Hobbes much more than Newbury, but really being sort of neutral about them both. The characters were not very developed, and really neither was the plot. I expected much more and was left unsatisfied. I'll probably read the second novel in the series just to see if it improves and to find out what happens to Veronica's sister.

[cassielm_2 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Maybe my problem is that I've read more straight Victorian literature than I have Steampunk. This book was full of anachronisms and that kind of bothered me. But, it's steampunk, so it's an alternate Victorian era so maybe the anachronisms are supposed to be part of the slightly different environment? I don't know. Every time I encountered one it drew me out of the story and made me want to throw the book across the room. Anachronism aside, the language used in the book is a bit stilted. It reads like the author was trying just a little too hard to make it sound properly Victorian.

The story itself is not bad. I wasn't totally sucked in, but I was engaged. It was a quick read that didn't require much thinking, which is exactly what I was in the mood for when I picked this up.

[bongo_x_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

3-½ stars. It’s a Steampunk Victorian adventure detective story with mechanical men and zombies. What more could you ask for? It’s a quick, easy read, entertaining, pretty well written, that seems like it was written with the movie in mind. It’s obviously trying to cram every trope in existence in to one book, but it works pretty well. Not as good as The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters, but in the same ballpark if you liked that one.

[gavreads · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There are a few things going on with The Affinity Bridge. It’s a page-turner, a detective story, it features Queen Victoria, it has spies, and it’s steampunk to name but a few of them. It’s quite a pot that George Mann is throwing ideas into.

It could be a mess and a bad pastiche of steampunk-Colan-Doyle-style as it does draw heavily from the idea of gentlemen detectives and the troubles of the upper-classes. But Mann has made it work. I was totally absorbed into his creation.

Simply he’s put his own stamp on everything. The streampunk is understated but integral. Foremost, this is a detective novel and Newbury and Hobbes have a mystery to solve. Actually two mysteries but the first, the death of peasants is overtaken by the crash of an airship, a case that is of far more important to the Crown.

Mann challenges the thinking of the time with Sir Maurice Newbury’s assistant, Miss Veronica Hobbes. Hobbes is in striking difference to his secretary Miss Coulthard, who is unable to function after the disappearance of her brother, which she suspects is at the hands of revenants who are stalking to the poorer areas of London. Hobbes on the other hand doesn’t think twice about hitching up her skirt and kicking the odd door from its hinges.

Mann grabs you by the scruff of the neck and throws you into his version of Victorian London, though I’m not taking any guesses at what year it is or how long Queen Victoria has been on the thrown and you’ll know why when you first meet her. He keeps the plot flying along. Newbury and Hobbes are fascinating in their own right but combined with the story Mann makes this a book that’s hard to put down and a world that’s hard to leave.

That isn’t to stay that it doesn’t have some weaknesses. There are a few action sequences, which are mostly well done but you get the feeling that Mann is enjoying himself too much in some places and that could they could have been cut down a little. I’m glad they are in there as they make for a nice change of tone from the politeness that Newbury usually exhibits.

There are a few words and phrases that jar every now and again and this is more to do with how well Mann captures the language of the time that when they get repeated you notice. But the banter and the dialogue is first rate.

Newbury is a gentlemen spy so his nemesis is a gentlemen of sorts. And the cat and mouse game that they play is teasing and fun. You can’t take this tale too seriously though the main characters have strong emotional connections and they have a believable fondness for each other. Mann has given The Affinity Bridge a strong central core and one that can grow and be explored in the next and subsequent books.

And there a few tip bits thrown into this one. Hints at what could happen in the future and what has happened in the past especially from the last scene. Now that was a surprise.

I’m greatly looking forward to seeing the next Newbury and Hobbes adventure, The Osiris Ritual, and I’m hoping that we’ll get to see more of Newbury’s interests in the Dark Arts and what secrets he’s able to tap into.

Highly Recommended

[redfiona_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The author is far better at writing places than characters, and, rather jarringly, the opening scene in India is undoubtedly the best part of the book (and suitably horrific). The settings are well drawn, and there's something pleasingly eerie in the Queen and her coterie and the Revenants.The plot doesn't cheat and hide information from the reader so it's possible to work up who/how/why-done-it at the same time or before the protagonists. It's also unconvoluted and well-thought out.The problem is the characters and the dialogue. It just doesn't quite work, there's a few anachronisms too many, I think, and Sir Maurice Newby is a textbook Marty Stu, and not in a nod-and-a-wink way. People take improbable amounts of damage towards the end of the book, and it totally threw out my ability to suspend my disbelief.That being said, I'm buying the next one, because of the cover, because of the setting and because of the thing at the end (that I shall say no more about).

[ocgreg34 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The world of Victorian London is full of dark and mysterious activities, such as the strange plague that rots the body and forces the sufferer to crave human flesh has rattled the nerves of folks in the poorer districts. Meanwhile, sightings of a spectral, glowing policeman who strangles random people has Sir Maurice Newbury -- an agent for the Queen and specializing in the supernatural -- scrambling to find the culprit. In the midst of it all, a dirigible known as 'The Lady Armitage' crashes into Finsbury Park and bursts into flames. Normally, Scotland Yard would handle the investigation, but the Queen has a keen family interest in discovering what happened, so she chanres Sir Maurice and his new assistant, Miss Veronica Hobbes, to scour the wreckage for clues.Combing the skeletal airship, they come across a group of crash victims restrained to their chairs so that they could not leave. Heading toward the front of the ship, they are unable to locate the pilot of the ship: no body, no skeleton, nothing to indicate that anyone had been steering the airship. Outside the wreckage, the meet with a Mr. Stokes a representative from Chapman and Villiers, one of the leading air transportation services in the country, and that hey had recently begun to use automatons to pilot their airships. Stokes assures Newbury and Hobbes that the automaton could not have malfunctioned. However, the duo sets out on their own investigation to find the missing pilot, and in the process, uncover the dark secret behind the automatons and a possible connection to the glowing policeman."The Affinity Bridge" spins a fun mystery/adventure tale set within the steampunk world of Victorian London. Electric lights, steam-powered airships, zombies, mechanical men -- what a world to explore, and yet author George Mann manages to keep things firmly within the Victorian world. One of my favorite examples of this is Miss Hobbes preferring to use a regular horse and carriage rather than one of those noisy, mechanical contraptions being controlled by drivers who still aren't too comfortable with the technology. Plus, his characters are all well-written and strong, from the unflappable Miss Hobbes (who has dark familial secrets) and the technologically-enthused Sir Maurice to the squirrely and smarmy Mr. Stokes and the unemotional and determined Pierre Villiers -- the creator of the automatons.My only fault with the novel is the side story of John Coulthard. Introduced in the prologue while serving in the war in India, his character disappears almost immediately after that. His sister happens to be Sir Maurice's receptionist, but the search for him and the reason behind his disappearance don't affect the main story in any way and doesn't have any relevance to it.But that is very minor in relation to the rest of the book. "The Affinity Bridge" is a great mixture of mystery and steampunk -- a fun read that I definitely enjoyed.

[dwwilkin_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

There were some admirable qualities in the Affinity Bridge. But it fell short of a five star review.It is a mystery, set in a steampunk Victorian era. Late Victorian for Queen Victoria died in January of 1901 and this is later in the year.There are Zombies, so right there, big strike against the book. IMHO there are too many incidents of Zombie fiction that has been unoriginal lately, though Mann does use it as a plot device.That we have a Holmes like investigator is not a perfect claim. Holmes is better than Sir Maurice Newbury. Newbury has his quirks. He draws pentagrams on his floor. But I did not see any result or reason for him to have done so. That was where Mann man have missed the boat. He had a chance to make Sir Maurice bigger. He didn't.He had some Steampunk gadgetry, and this gave us a world where we have Hansom Cabs becoming mechanical. But the day to day gadgetry did not really seem to exist. Only a few big things, like the train, the airship. Then we had a long, really long fight sequence that you will have seen in movies as men jostle atop a train. Yet it was so long that a good tenth of the book seemed to be eaten away. For something that did not add to the drama and became implausible as well.There is the heart of it. Sir Maurice was already wounded and having a terrible (and boringly long) fight on top of a train car that was driving about the streets of London (So how fast could it really go?) and he was able to win. No, Mann had the makings of a mystery, but then he also let us down with no deductive reasoning at the crime scene. An airship crashes and the investigation is rather childish. Need to read Crichton's Airframe, there is a lot that goes on when a major disaster occurs.In the end, the world needed more to be Steampunk (and if the Queen dies, she dies. Easy enough to change your date to 1900), it needed a better investigator, and when a man is wounded, he only has so much he can endure.There just does not seem a need to find out any more in the world of Newbury and Hobbes.