I really enjoyed Emma Donoghue’s Room so I was keen to read her latest novel. Frog Music is set in San Francisco in 1876, where the city is in the twin grips of a smallpox epidemic and a scorching heat wave. The novel explores the events surrounding an actual murder of the time, that of the cross-dressing frog catcher Jenny Bonnet.

The story is told from the point of view of Jenny’s friend Blanche, a French prostitute who dances and sings at a notorious brothel (another form of Frog Music?). Blanche is in a relationship with the gambling wastrel Arthur, with whom she has a son, P’tit, whom they have abandoned to the care of a baby farm.

Blanche encounters Jenny by accident and an attraction quickly forms. Jenny’s questioning leads Blanche to track down P’tit; she discovers him sickly and in dire need and rescues him, placing her professional and private relationships in immediate danger.

Shortly afterwards, Jenny is dead, shot through the window of a hotel bedroom. Blanche is sure that Arthur is responsible, and that Jenny was an accidental victim of an attempt on Blanche's life. She sets about trying to track down Arthur and avenge Jenny.

This is an entertaining book and a very good crime novel with a bit of a different setting. Donoghue keeps you guessing, and she also does a great job of describing San Francisco and the life of the underclass that Blanche is a part of. The only part of this book that did not ring true for me was that so much of the novel depends on Blanche’s maternal instincts for the misshapen, sickly and unloveable P’tit overcoming all of her desires for the life that she had. I’m afraid Donoghue’s Blanche just did not convince as somebody who would do that. ( )

This story just went on and on! I was speed reading this book just to get to the end............... ( )

Too long, too much of Blanche's thoughts dragging the story. Also no focus. The setting is the smallpox epidemic ravaging California and the discrimination of Chinese immigrants, with subplots (or main plot?) about Jenny's murder, Blanche's suspicions about who the killers are, and Blanche's reconciliation with her son whom she entrusted to an infant farm with her belatedly discovering how poor the care is. The only thing interesting about the book is the setting that the story took place in. ( )

Really good. Engaging two-strand plot structure, great characters. ( )

A queer historical novel set in 1876 San Francisco about a burlesque dancer whose baby is taken from her and a woman who wears men’s clothes at a time when this was an arrestable offense. Then there’s a murder. This was a little quieter than some of Emma Donoghue’s other books and when I was done I was comparing it unfavorably in my head to my favorite of hers, Life Mask. But the story stuck with me and I keep thinking about it, so I’m realizing this book was actually pretty great. ( )