The Dark Lantern

by Gerri Brightwell

London, 1893. Elderly Mrs. Bentley is on her deathbed, and her son Robert has returned from France. But in the Bentleys’ well-appointed home, everyone has their secrets, including Robert’s beautiful and elusive wife, the orphan maid she hires from the country, and the mysterious young woman who arrives, claiming to be the bride of Robert’s drowned brother.

Robert is quickly developing a reputation in anthropometry, the nascent science of identifying criminals by body measurements. Yet soon he is caught up in the deceptions swirling around him, for no one under his roof is quite what they seem. When an intruder enters the house and ransacks the study, a chain of events is set in motion that threatens not only the genteel, comfortable life the Bentleys have managed to secure but also their very survival.

A fascinating portrayal of a vanished England as well as an unconventional mystery, The Dark Lantern exposes the grand “upstairs” of a Victorian home and the darker underbelly of its servants’ quarters. The clash between the classes makes for a suspenseful novel of mistaken identities, intriguing women, and dangerous deceptions.


From the Hardcover edition.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery, Fiction, Historical, Gothic, Victorian, British Literature

336 pages, Hardcover

First published March 4, 2008

Reviews

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

This little treat of Victorian Noir follows an orphan who takes a position in London as housemaid in the Bentley home, where the “below stairs” folk seem to be as treacherous and secretive as those above stairs. The mistress of the house is dying and her son and daughter-in-law have come to visit, but the daughter-in-law refuses to leave the house because of some unnamed danger lurking in the foggy streets, and the servants are slyly running amok. Meanwhile the son is busy dabbling in anthropometry (the science of identifying criminals by body measurements), which puts him in contact with all sorts of shady characters, but at least he seems to be a decent enough person. I was interested to learn a bit about anthropometry, which at that time rivaled finger-printing as the dominant system of identification — who knew?? However, the subplot of Victorian criminology is no match for the domestic espionage that goes on, especially once a woman turns up claiming to be the widow of the elder brother, and our young housemaid is enlisted to spy on her. Meanwhile, someone is spying on the Bentley house, but why? Although it's suffused with atmosphere, the book is only mildly thrilling — I wasn’t sure who to trust even right up to the end, but I’ve read more gripping novels. Where it shines is in its very clear and very grim picture of life in the servant class, where a tyrannical housekeeper or mistress could make a servant’s existence even more unbearable than it already was.

[Joyce · Rating 3 out of 5]

Things I liked about this book:

1. Learning about anthropometry as an alternative to fingerprinting in the 18th Century.
2. The characters were well drawn enough to hold my attention, though I liked some characters better than others.
3. I enjoyed the mystery angle, though not necessarily all of the mystery "solutions".

Things I disliked about this book:

1. Really not interested in the state of various characters' bladders throughout the story.
2. Could have done without the sex scenes. The fact that they were mostly easily skipped over tells me they really weren't essential to the plot.
3. There was a disturbing near-rape scene near the end of the book, and an overly graphic description of a human corpse.

Things I was ambivalent about:

1. The present-tense narration.
2. The leisurely pace of the book.
3. One important mystery was left unsolved at the end of the book.

Is this a book I would want to read again? Sadly, no. The negatives for me outweighed the positives by far. And the biggest negative of all was more a reflection of my own reading taste than it was of the author’s talent. Plain and simple: I like a happy ending with my books. While some of the characters achieved that, others did not. Regrettably for me, the characters who did have “happy endings” were the characters I least personally cared about, while those that I had found myself rooting for were the ones who were left miserable in the end. However, since each reader will likely find herself/himself attracted to different characters, you may find yourself quite satisfied where I was disappointed.

Would I recommend The Dark Lantern? Well, I wouldn’t not recommend it. If you like literary novels, you will probably like this book. If you bond with different characters than I did, you may like this book. If you can overlook the bladder scenes and sex scenes and the unusual narration tense and just kind of float above it all as an interesting story, you may very well like this book. I enjoyed learning about anthropometry, and expect most readers would find the subject interesting, too.

You can read a more detailed review of The Dark Lantern on my JDP NEWS blog at http://jdp-news.blogspot.com/2009/03/...

[Rabbit {Paint me like one of your 19th century gothic heroines!} · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of the books where I'm in the middle between loving it and hating it. I'm luke-warm, not hot not cold.



I really liked the characters to a degree. Not that they are particularly likeable.

Mina being a shady bitch who is so paranoid that others are just as shady as she is, and she is not necessarily wrong about that either.



Jane being a weepy whipping girl but at the same time has her own agenda. Okay after awhile she stopped weeping so much, but it's already been cemented in my head of her crying. All. The. Damn. Time. At the drop of a hat.



And the widow who might not be a widow.



& Sarah is just getting the dirt on everyone.



Oooh... So much suspense.

I have no idea if I'm being sarcastic or serious when I'm reviewing this book, both?

It was one step away from being trashy, but pretentious!lit writing kept it a bit more classy.

It is a gothic but without the trashy cheesiness that we all know and love.

I'm keeping this one so far, because...I don't know why.



Loves the cover tho.

[Kathryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Goodness - the deceptions in the Bentley household come thick and fast in this book. Each member, family and servant, have their secrets. It reminded me a little of Downton Abbey, although it’s mostly set in the last decade of the 1800s and has more intrigue even than Downton.

I have to confess to being fickle enough that I was a bit disappointed when I found that the cover of my book looked like this rather than like this. And that it was even enough to make me less inclined to read the book, but after I got past the cover and the first chapter or two, it was an easy read and kept my interest. 3.5★

[MaryannC Victorian Dreamer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good intriguing book. Loved the Victorian setting of London, I felt like I was there amongst the sights and sounds.

[Tamara · Rating 2 out of 5]

The last 50 pages finally got interesting but the blurb for this book definitely oversold the book!

Set in Victorian England, Dark Lantern tells the story of Jane the housemaid, and the family she works for. Everyone has secrets which promise to be interesting and simply aren't. Everyone appears to be using someone else for some reason. The only thing that held real promise was an alternative method of criminal identification to fingerprinting and that was not the main focus of the story. All in all, just a disappointment. Don't waste your time.

[Judi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great, pulpy period piece: an upstairs/downstairs mystery set in a pre-war London upper-class household. Interesting cast of characters, one of whom has a pretty dark secret. It's on the heavier side of light reading, if that makes sense, and is short & tight. I read it in about 24 hours, and enjoyed it.

[LJ · Rating 2 out of 5]

THE DARK LANTERN (Hist. Thriller-Jane Wilbred-England-1893) - Okay
Brightwell, Gerri – 1st book
Crown Publishers, 2008, US Hardcover – ISBN: 9780307395344

First Sentence: She sits stiffly on the seat of the cart, her whole self held in against the tumult of the city.

Jane Wilbred, the daughter of a murderess, was raised in an orphanage and began her life in service to a tyrannical vicar’s wife. She has altered a reference letter and secured a new post in London to the Bentley family.

Mrs. Bentley lies dying in her room attended for the past 12 years by the very protective Miss Price. Her son Robert Bentley is trying to make his mark by advocating anthropometry (identifying criminals by recording multiple physical measurements) as opposed to dactylography (fingerprints). His wife, Mina, is a woman with a secret past, desperate to keep it that way.

While some might consider this book atmospheric, for me it was plodding. It did depict the hard life of those in service “below stairs.”

However, other than Robert Bentley, there wasn’t a single character about who I really cared. I could sympathize with Jane, considering her beginnings, but didn’t particularly like her. These were unpleasant people behaving unpleasantly and almost no one is as they seem and everyone is spying on everyone else.

The story was interesting enough that I did read it straight through, but was very happy when it ended. The one thing I did very much appreciate was that the author tied up the details as to what happened to most of the characters at the end.

It was an interesting read but certainly not one of my favorites.

[Avril]

I'm nearing the end of this novel, and wishing it would be finished already. The coincidence of three women from three walks of life all coming from the same background, all struggling to maintain a facade of respectability seems a bit contrived.

Sadly, in order to survive an oppressive society with no support for these women, they have to scheme, lie and get up to all sorts of bad stuff.

Meanwhile, the setting is dingy and dirty too. The falling snow turns grey, the ashes from the fire settling on the carpet, the carrying of the chamber pot to the toilet, multiple mentions of charwomen. The servants are always cold, so cold they can't sleep. The skin on their hands is reddened, calloused and constantly splitting from hard work -fingers like carrots attached to small women's hands. This book is black and grey and dismal. There's no joy or humor in it. It's just relentless.

I'll check back in with more once I'm done reading the book.

I'm finished reading the book. Things did come together at the book's end, but despite the protagonists' escapes from the drudgery of servitude or living double lives, it's still not altogether a happy ending. I don't need happy endings, I just need ones that sort of fit. I think this book ended a little more tidily than I would have liked it to, but that's just my own personal opinion.

It was good enough to hold my attention until the end, so it is a well written book.

[Jolene · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story takes place in the late nineteenth century and centers around a young servant girl from the English countryside. She has just taken the position of a housemaid in a London household and becomes immersed in a web of secrets, deceptions, and hidden pasts, not the least of which is her own. Brightwell cleverly uses a vivid depiction of 1890s London and the difficulties of a life in service to strengthen the atmosphere without overwhelming the plot.

[Nattie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had been wanting to read this book for quite some time, but it turned out to be another bust. I'm so tired of being disappointed by books. I decided to throw this one across the room after less than a chapter. I knew it wasn't going to be any good.

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

(2.5 stars) The book is set in the late 1800s in London and focuses on the Bentley household. The owner of the home, Mrs. Bentley, is extremely ill and her son, Robert and his wife, Mina, have recently come to stay after being abroad. Robert is a proponent of anthropometry and hopes to get this recognized as the method to identify criminals. Mina has recently hired a maid from the country, Jane, who has hidden the fact that she is the daughter of a murderess. But Mina has her own secrets, and these are coming back to haunt her in London. She uses her hold over Jane to have her spy for her and take messages. In the meantime, the servants have their own loyalties and take advantage when they can. It also seems like someone is out to steal ideas from Robert and possibly usurp his lead in the field. While the concept was interesting, the story never really came together for me and I found that most of the characters did not hold my interest.

[Charlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another smart Victorian novel that does not disappoint. Brightwell craftily depicts Victorian London from behind the draped curtains of middle-class society. This is a book that holds actual thematic weight and not just a promising plot. Through the weaving and interaction of characters the class line is drawn, but also crossed, which gives the story a classical feel and is probably due to the author’s schooled background in literature studies. Even though class separates the characters, secrets connect them, which places them all on a similar level of sorts. This idea had me thinking long after the story was finished and for that gem, I think it is intelligent and worth the reading time invested. I am a bit surprised this novel does not have higher ratings on other sites.

The story begins with Jane and although she remains a primary focus, Mina emerges to equal attention. This is an interesting topic for discussion, but had me asking for a moment, ‘Is this Jane or Mina’s story?’ There was a slight shift in importance when I believe the character’s story (Mina) could have been told without lessening the emphasis on the heroine Jane. Also as a reader, I found myself a tad cheated when it came to Sarah. I was taken in by the description of her and I kept waiting for this wilily maid to play a bigger role, but she never did. I was baited on the build up and was kicked out in the cold when her fate was so quickly swept a side.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book portrayed Victorian England well. The relationships between the servants themselves and their interactions with their employers conveyed what daily household life may have been like in Victorian England. Jane, the main narrator/point of view of the story is newly arrived to London from the country. She is the second house maid and therefore responsible for most of the scutwork "upstairs", such as cleaning and lighting the fireplaces, and the majority of the cleaning. Unfortunately, she is also taken advantage of quite often.

The attitudes of the Master and Mistress of the house towards their staff is also described very well throughout the book. All of these unspoken feelings and thoughts between the characters only heightens the suspicious elements of the story. "Is the maid spying on me or going through my things? What does she know? Who is the gentleman that she meets on her half day off?" The fact that almost every character has secrets to hide only adds to the paranoia and creates tension.

This book felt like a detective novel, and kept me guessing until the end. It was a quick enjoyable read with a few surprises thrown in at the end. The author also described a Victorian household and its workings extremely well. I know I probably would have been a second maid.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Where to begin... (possibly mild spoilers ahead!)
This book was just luke warm for me. I'll start with the characters. While they all were interesting and devious, those below stairs as well as above, I just didn't find myself super attached to any of them.
Especially Mina, let's talk about her for a moment. I did not feel anything for her. At all. Through most of the book she's a bit crazy and does some horrible things. Near the end they reveal her tragic past. And I still don't care. I wouldn't have minded if her death had been real in the end.

The plots. Possibly too many for the length of the book. I wanted to delve deeper into all that was going on. But it felt like the numerous plot points were barely skimmed over. Except for Mina's. That was focused on. And here I had no idea wtf was going on or what was real or what Mina was even talking about. Ok, I'll stop talking about this book now.

[Mary Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a extremely well-done, but very depressing, thriller set in Victorian London. It sure brought home, once again, how few options women had during that time if they didn’t come from money and a loving family. It’s a sad story and it wasn’t that fun for me because there was no one to root for, but at the same time, that’s what made it intriguing: you didn’t know what the true story was on any of the main characters. The author weaves interlocking stories and clues in a very convincing, effortless manner, and kept me guessing until the very end. Another theme was the upstairs/downstairs dynamic, but again, for the female characters that hardly mattered – they all had little power or resources.

[Nicole Romine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I tend to be depressingly consistent on what’s going to make me love a book – a Victorian era historical set in London, a female protagonist, a multi-layered mystery, and a bit of social commentary. The last book I read that had all of these components (Grace Hammer) was incredibly disappointing. The Dark Lantern, however, delivered a captivating plot that perfectly achieved everything I want in a good read. In addition, the narrative is perfectly paced, which is a rarity in these types of books. Highly recommended.

[Babette · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book based on a recommendation I came across. It sounded promising, but was disappointing. It is more about the secrets in people's lives than a real mystery. I suppose the best I can say about it is that it seems to provide a good picture way people lived during the period - the precariousness of many people's lives and their dependence on the good nature of others.

[Vivianeh · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm rating this as a very mediocre mystery which only gets the least bit interesting in the last few chapters. The writing is average, the characters black and white, and the plot is so slow in developing it pretty much sends you to sleep. Add to that a main character that is so mousy and weepy that you want to slap her, and you've got a book that I cannot recommend to anyone.

[Silvia Cherchi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pagine pesanti, noiose, piene di scene lente. Leggere questo romanzo è stato un po’ come in quei sogni in cui vorresti correre e invece sei lentissimo.
E, tanto per non farci mancare niente, una trama come fuochi d’artificio: ognuno prende la sua strada e si spegne nel buio senza lasciare niente.

[Momma Aimee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I finished it, cuz I am hard-headed like that

[Demoon · Rating 2 out of 5]

My IG su libri e scrittura: desywriter 📚 🖊

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Mi dispiace parlare con poco entusiasmo di un libro, ma voglio spiegare il perché di un voto così basso.

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Thriller. Era vittoriana.
Se mi conoscete nel profilo, potete ben capire perché fossi incuriosita da sto libro e che ho da anni, scovato nell'ombra della mia libreria. L'ho ripreso in mano e rileggendo la trama mi aveva esaltato, oltre che per quanto irrilevante al contenuto, trovo l'edizione della Newton davvero bella e ha le pagine nere! Ma purtroppo per me è un no.
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La trama ruota intorno ad una casa, come da titolo, e ai segreti di chi in essa ci vive. Ogni personaggio nasconde delle ansie e nessuno di loro sembra sentirsi al sicuro in quelle mura come fossero estranei. Robert Bentley e la moglie Mina, dalla Francia sbarcano in Inghilterra in quella casa per assistere la madre morente dell'uomo, e qui i loro destini insieme a quelli della cameriera Jane, si incastreranno. Mina sembra innervorsi all'improvviso da quando è Inghilterra e i sospetti annebbieranno ogni cosa.
Il signor Bentley è un esperto di antropometria, ovvero misurare le persone, in special modo i detenuti.
Ed è stata una buona idea voler parlare di questo campo scientifico che andava in voga nell'era vittoriana insieme alla impronte digitali...ma già da qui, qualcosa ha cominciato a scricchiolare, poiché il lavoro dell'uomo non è al centro del libro, né il mistero o l'indagine ulteriore sono così imprimenti. La Casa dei segreti comincia a ingranare soltanto dopo la metà per quanto concerne il mistero, ma comunque è appiattito e non si avverte ansia o tensione crescente, i pochi momenti di thriller qui presenti sono nebulosi e svaniscono in lunghezze boriose, fatta eccezione per le pagine finali dove l'angoscia si avverte.
È un libro abbastanza lento e non per la prosa, bensì per scene dove la scrittrice si disperde in descrizioni di momenti anche ripetuti, senza metterci tanto altro nel mezzo, rendendo il tutto retorico.

E per quanto le ambientazioni sono ben descritte e vivide non ho sentito l'era vittoriana in quanto libro, potrebbe benissimo essere ambientato nella maggioranza di epoche passate.

Il mistero in sé l'ho trovato piuttosto banalotto, probabilmente perché avevo capito dove voleva parare nei primi capitoli e il fatto che si sappia che i personaggi hanno dei segreti quasi da subito, non mi ha fatto interessare come dovrebbe.
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Un libro freddo e distante.
Non ho provato nessuna emozione se non la curiosità basica di capire il mistero dell'intera faccenda e risolvere un caso.
Peccato perché l'idea di partenza era buona.

[Devon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked that this book was able to put me into the Victorian Era for awhile, at least as long as I read it. The grime and sights and smells of London in the 19th century were just there, waiting for me.

Also awaiting me was the fact that literally every single character in this story seemed to have a secret--or ten. People are saying it's implausible that everyone would have a secret in a house, but come on. Who DOESN'T have secrets? You don't think your housemates, or your spouse/significant other, or your friends, or your family, or whoever else you choose to live with doesn't have secrets that you don't know about? The IMPLAUSIBILITY that the people in the reviews are banging on about is that somehow all these characters would have secrets that interlace. That I can agree with.

The story is set around a woman who arrives from the country in order to take the position of a maid. Her secret is that she is the daughter of a murderer who was hanged for her crime. Her OTHER secret is that she won her position in the household by taking out mention of her station of birth from the letter of recommendation. She is quickly blackmailed into handing over all her wages to another servant, Sarah, who is lazy, shirks her duties, goes out for longer and more often than she ought to, and is insolent. Why? She broke a tazza and Sarah promised to replace it for her so long as Jane (the maid) paid her back over a series of months every bit of coin she received in wages.

The woman who heads the household is dying from a stroke, and her son and his wife have come to manage things. The wife has a secret (surprise, surprise) that takes the entire novel to unfold--the reader doesn't even learn all of it until a quick revelation in the last few pages. She's had a past life as a crook, using the temptation of her body to lure in a man to pledge money to the promise of a mining adventure. The mine never existed, and she's married to the crook who schemed it up. It's horrifying to find that she was plucked from an orphanage and essentially raped for years (she's a child; a child can't give consent) until the man who adopted her (again, the crook previously mentioned) marries her when she's legally old enough.

The crook (Flyte), who is "womanly" in manners, somehow tracks her down again at precisely the same time that the man they conned (Popham) has ALSO discovered her and wants to have sex with her as punishment for being fooled and tricked out of money. Flyte has set a man (Steiner) to watch her every day, day in and day out, and she notices this and grows worried. How did Flyte find her while he was still in jail for most of the novel? How did he communicate to Steiner to watch her? Maybe the book addressed this and I glossed over it; I don't know.

The woman (Mina) is desperate, and blackmails Jane into prying into the affairs of the servants. She uses Jane again when a woman shows up, claiming to be the widow of Mina's husband's brother, trying to find out her true identity and why she was set to falsehood. Ironically enough this woman turns out to be one of the more honest characters in the book, obscuring a poor background but truly being courted by Henry. He HAD asked her to marry him, and she had told him to give her time to think when the ship had gone down, killing him. Doesn't matter; this woman must take the life insurance policy left to him and flee when the scrutiny pointed at her gets to be too intense.

I would have liked a little more backstory with Jane's suitor. He was working for Popham and wanted information from their household (WOW ANOTHER SECRET WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT). Jane even was like "this can't be a coincidence!" but she didn't really press it any further. I think I might have asked him if he had ever seen me before, if it truly COULD be coincidence that he could just run into me on the street and yet be in service to a man my employer was bothered by and sent at least one missive to. Barring that--when did he fall in love with her? When did the play-acting and the following turn into something more? Clearly it did as the story closes with the two of them running a business out in the country, cosy and married with her pregnant after some failures.

The book takes quite awhile to set up the story, everything is all wrapped up neat with a bow, and then literally everything comes undone with one quick flick. Mina has paid (handsomely!) for letters she knows Popham to have. Who has she paid? Teddy, Jane's suitor. Teddy goes to get the letters. Jane just happens to be outside and Flyte calls to her. Mina sees. Mina FREAKS OUT, thinks Jane is a spy. Wowie. You have a spy and you suddenly think "oh dang, maybe I can't trust the GIRL WHO LIED TO GET HER POSITION?" She checks her trunk to make certain that documents she possesses to keep Flyte at bay are still there. They aren't. Why aren't they? Mina told Jane to let the widow Victoria have a trunk to use. Jane obeyed, knocked it hard by accident, and discovered a false compartment in the trunk composed of the documents. She promptly took them to Teddy to keep them safe.

Mina continues to lose it, and casts Jane out. This is actually pretty funny to me because she is her own downfall. If she'd seen Jane talking to Flyte and figured it was a mistake, or hadn't even seen Jane talking at all, she wouldn't have cast her out. Teddy would have come, would have brought her the letters, Popham would have no hold over her, and whilst she would need to find where the Flyte documents had gone to, she would not have to flee her household. Instead, Teddy arrives, finds out that Jane has been cast out, and goes frantically looking for her. Leaving Mina to Popham, who drags her to a brothel and nearly rapes her but for Flyte's intervention, who dangles her over a river asking where his money is before casting her in when her answer is unsatisfactory.

I find the ending kind of a shame. I mean, Mina's life was difficult--clearly--but she ran and hid AGAIN, obscuring her identity and taking up with a doctor that she does not love but is all right with as it is a tolerable life. What about her husband? She could have written to him and had him come to her if she still worried over Popham and Flyte watching for her. She knew that he was looking for her; it was why she avoided Paris, Lyon, and Nice. I really empathised with her husband, who loved her so immensely and who was broken after it, always searching for her, always wondering where she might be. He literally brought in a fingerprint expert--which was enemy to his field of anthropometry, the study and measurement of the body to use in order to bring in criminals--in order to identify a body just to make certain it wasn't hers. He grieved and wondered where she might be, and she hid out in the country, no doubt ready to make up a new name and story and flee at the first wind of trouble.

It was a fairly good book. I might have given it 3 1/2 stars, even, if the rating system allowed for it... It was a bit of a stretch that everyone could be wound together in such a manner, I thought, but it was an interesting enough read.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have had this book on my to read list for years, and I always thought it was a Gothic novel. But The Dark Lantern is actually a twisty historical novel set in 1893 England, a novel that spins a web of lies and deception. When old Mrs. Bentley lies dying in her upper class home in London, her younger son and his wife return home from Paris where Robert has championed the new forensic science of anthropometry, vying with fingerprints as the best method of identifying criminals. Mina, Robert's wife, soon hires a new maid, an orphan whose mother was hung for murder. The maid allows us an insider's view of the below stairs world of a Victorian home, giving a true picture of the dangers and pitfalls of a life in service. With the news of Robert's older brother's death by shipwreck and the survival of his bride, a marriage unknown to his family, the tension in the Bentley home increases tenfold. Deception upon deception thickens the plot and the suspense, culminating in a surprising conclusion.

[Mario Corrado · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una serie di misteri e segreti nella Londra Vittoriana. Le atmosfere del tempo sono rese in modo vivido e reale, non edulcorato alla Downtown Abbey. Seguiamo le cameriere che svuotano pitali maleodoranti e lavorano in cucine brulicanti di scarafaggi. Non vi è un vero protagonista.ma diversi personaggi in cui pensieri sono descritti in un insolito tempo indicativo presente alla terza persona. La storia non è particolarmente emozionante, abbastanza modesta. Il valore è nella ricostruzione delle atmosfere, nella fuliggine di Londra che vi si attacca ai vestiti, al freddo la notte nei letti della servitù, alla vita dei piani alti, costantemente osservati dai piani bassi. Nel complesso interessante ma non memorabile.

[Anita · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very suspenseful and intense story weaving the lives of four different woman who are all in one household in Victorian London. Mina is the wife of Robert, they have come from Paris because his mother is dying; Price is the mother’s ladies maid; Jane is the newly hired young orphaned maid and lastly - the young widow. Robert’s brother has died when his ship from India sank off France. Four very different women... with many layers of secrets.

[Oliver · Rating 5 out of 5]

Liked this one a lot: Upstairs/Downstairs NeoGothic mystery. Almost every character has a secret and they work hard to cover them up, with surprising results. The book does a great job of evoking the granular details of life in service within a Victorian household as well as the relentlessly gloomy, polluted atmosphere of London (the author notes her indebtedness to Judith Flanders in that endeavor).

[Nicole · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found most of this book to be a slog. All the characters were pretty unlikeable and miserable which mean you couldn't even enjoy watching events unfold despite the lack of connection. I suppose I appreciate the author's more realistic approach to life for any given person living at this time, but there was no spark of joy or light anywhere.

[Roshni · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting just in terms of the point of view of "below-the-stairs" of the British upper class. I really didn't like any of the characters, which was perhaps the point. The foray into forensic science made an interesting diversion.