I was disappointed in th book. First—too many characters with no importance to the plot. The author must be honing her writing skills as th book was incredibly long and mostly unneeded. The idea of dead photographs was engaging and made me want to really read the book originally, but was disappointing as it was not delved into at all. I know this was a real practice in Victorian time period. I thought the title was a clue to a true Victorian mystery but not so. Interested that some writers looked up references and i was impressed. I admit I was not familiar with artistic problems that were at play so I must not be too critical of what was going on.