Shelf Control #15

It’s Wednesday, and time again for Shelf Control (I ended up skipping this last week). This is a feature I’ve borrowed  from Lisa at Bookshelf Fantasies,and celebrates the books waiting to be read on your TBR.  All one has to do is to pick a book from one’s TBR every Wednesday, and write a post about it (usually what it’s all about, what makes you want to read it, where you got it, and such, but I guess up to you really).

This week, the book I’m featuring is:

 

The Death Instinct by Jeb Rubenfeld is the second of two books in the author’s ‘Freud’ series (yes, Sigmund Freud).

What it’s all about: This story opens with a blast on Wall Street in September 1920, which killed and injured many. Among the witnesses of the blast are war veteran Stratam Younger, James Littlemore of the NYPD, an a French radiochemist Colette Rousseau. Mysterious attacks on the Rousseau, lead the three to travel from Paris to Prague, the Vienna home of Dr Freud and Washington, revealing the shocking truths behind the bomb attack.

When and where I got it: This is again a book that I didn’t actually buy myself. In fact, I hadn’t heard of the book or the author. When I shopped for some books online in a second-hand shop some months ago, this was sent to me as a gift (part of the sale they had on).

A little about the author: The author Jeb Rubenfeld is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, with experience with Shakespeare plays and a thesis on Freud. The two books in this series appear to be his only novels (other works being academic texts). (I speak only from the information on goodreads).

Why I want to read it: For starters, because it falls within two genres that I really enjoy reading–mysteries, and historical fiction–being set around an actual historical event, and featuring historical characters, both Freud and Madame Curie. The plot sounds fairly interesting, though I’m not entirely ‘sold’ as it were on the ‘truth that threatens to shake their world to its foundations’ part. Reviews on goodreads as pretty mixed again, some have loved it, others not so much. Still I think I will eventually give it a go.

So have you heard of or read this book or anything by this author (his other book, that is)? Do you like historical mysteries? What are some favourites? Looking forward to hearing about them!