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Rough Justice
A detective novel, written during the height of Sherlock Holmes's popularity.
Yellowback
First published January 1, 1898
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25 people want to read
About the author
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
1,062 books386 followersMary Elizabeth Braddon was a British Victorian era popular novelist. She was an extremely prolific writer, producing some 75 novels with very inventive plots. The most famous one is her first novel, Lady Audley's Secret (1862), which won her recognition and fortune as well. The novel has been in print ever since, and has been dramatised and filmed several times.
Braddon also founded Belgravia Magazine (1866), which presented readers with serialized sensation novels, poems, travel narratives, and biographies, as well as essays on fashion, history, science. She also edited Temple Bar Magazine. Braddon's legacy is tied to the Sensation Fiction of the 1860s.
She is also the mother of novelist W.B. Maxwell.
Braddon also founded Belgravia Magazine (1866), which presented readers with serialized sensation novels, poems, travel narratives, and biographies, as well as essays on fashion, history, science. She also edited Temple Bar Magazine. Braddon's legacy is tied to the Sensation Fiction of the 1860s.
She is also the mother of novelist W.B. Maxwell.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 20, 2023
Typical Victorian sensation novel by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, about an innocent unjustly accused of a murder.
When Lisa Rainer is found dead, all police suspicions are on her former suitor Arnold Wentworth. Arnold, that wants to clear his name in order to marry young Mary Freeland, hires a detective to expose the real murderer. Nice audiobook on Librivox.
When Lisa Rainer is found dead, all police suspicions are on her former suitor Arnold Wentworth. Arnold, that wants to clear his name in order to marry young Mary Freeland, hires a detective to expose the real murderer. Nice audiobook on Librivox.
November 19, 2016
In stuffy old Victorian England, Mary Elizabeth Braddon was 'living in sin' with a married man and making pots of money writing sensation novels such as Lady Audley's Secret. Good for her.
Her lead character in this story, Arnold Wentworth, is the son of a landed squire who lived in poverty in London after disappointing his father, changed his name and found fortune in South Africa, returning home to find his old love (with whom he had lived in sin) has been murdered and he is the only suspect.
Mary Freeland is a childhood friend of Arnold, an orphan who comes into a small inheritance and meets him on the boat back from South Africa. They fall in love, only for Wentworth, calling himself by another name, to be arrested for the murder of his former love.
Enter Chief Inspector John Faunce, who believes that murderers are born and not made, a fan of Balzac, Dumas, Scott, and Dickens ('Balzac was a born detective.') He may as well have owned up to a fondness for Wilkie Collins too because in the manor of that writer's detectives he gets to tell his part of the story interspersed with the wider narrative.
The case against Wentworth is circumstantial but incredibly convincing, yet when he meets him Faunce has to concede that 'I could see upon him no mark of the criminal character.' Everything goes as you would expect it to for the first third but then, to Braddon's credit, something different occurs and relations between detective and suspect take on a new aspect.
Braddon was a prolific writer. This is the third novel of hers I have read and the results have been variable. Lady Audley's was melodramatic but had a tremendous premise, Wyllard's Weird was formulaic and overlong.
Rough Justice got the balance right in terms of plot novelty and the story not overstaying its welcome.
Also of note is the morally contentious resolution once the murderer is uncovered. No doubt many readers would have disagreed with it back then, and I'm not really sure that I agreed with it here and now, but isn't that part of what sensation novels were all about?
Her lead character in this story, Arnold Wentworth, is the son of a landed squire who lived in poverty in London after disappointing his father, changed his name and found fortune in South Africa, returning home to find his old love (with whom he had lived in sin) has been murdered and he is the only suspect.
Mary Freeland is a childhood friend of Arnold, an orphan who comes into a small inheritance and meets him on the boat back from South Africa. They fall in love, only for Wentworth, calling himself by another name, to be arrested for the murder of his former love.
Enter Chief Inspector John Faunce, who believes that murderers are born and not made, a fan of Balzac, Dumas, Scott, and Dickens ('Balzac was a born detective.') He may as well have owned up to a fondness for Wilkie Collins too because in the manor of that writer's detectives he gets to tell his part of the story interspersed with the wider narrative.
The case against Wentworth is circumstantial but incredibly convincing, yet when he meets him Faunce has to concede that 'I could see upon him no mark of the criminal character.' Everything goes as you would expect it to for the first third but then, to Braddon's credit, something different occurs and relations between detective and suspect take on a new aspect.
Braddon was a prolific writer. This is the third novel of hers I have read and the results have been variable. Lady Audley's was melodramatic but had a tremendous premise, Wyllard's Weird was formulaic and overlong.
Rough Justice got the balance right in terms of plot novelty and the story not overstaying its welcome.
Also of note is the morally contentious resolution once the murderer is uncovered. No doubt many readers would have disagreed with it back then, and I'm not really sure that I agreed with it here and now, but isn't that part of what sensation novels were all about?
February 16, 2021
Can you morally justify murdering somebody for an inheritance, if you're going to use the inheritance to build low-income housing, develop food security initiatives, and advance a socialist agenda? Maybe, but probably not.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 13, 2023
This is one of Braddon's spectacular successes. 'Rough Justice' is a murder mystery inspired by the Ripper slashings of the time, as well as the many unsolved brutal killings eclipsed by Saucy Jack - the Torso Murders, for one, the West Ham Vanishings, and in particular, as relative to 'Rough Justice', the murder in almost identical circumstances, of Harriet Buswell, in the case named as the Great Coram Street Murder by the press.
In this novel, steeped in all the flummery of Victorian melodrama - murder, treasure, fortune hunters and 'bad' women - emerges an almost Gissing-like realism. Can passion die a natural death with nothing to sustain it but poverty? Of course it can! Is it wrong to desert a woman you owe your life to? Yes, but you can't be grateful forever. Is it honourable to desert a woman you have wronged? No, it is not, but life happens. Is it wrong to covet a fortune? No, it is naturally mine, or should have been mine!
It is interesting to see the solution of the murder as the ex-Inspector in charge, Ins Faunce, sets out to study the crime. It is not exactly a police procedural; Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens already had produced two excellent officers in Sergeant Cuff and Inspector Bucket, and although the Scotland Yard police officer later became a stock figure of incompetence, thanks largely to the unfortunate Inspector Fred Abberline of the Ripper Case, Faunce comes close to the hardbitten and hard-hitting police officer we are familiar with today. That he failed to secure a conviction for his only suspect is a foregone conclusion, since he did not bother to look for any other. That he was created by a 'sensationalist' woman writer is all the more remarkable for its time. In this book, thanks to Faunce's comments, runs a vein of grim humour, unsuspected in Braddon's other books.
Braddon poses a serious philosophical question, which one would think needs no second thought upon the action to be taken. Indeed, the ending is questionable. In effect, Braddon says that the ends justify the means. Additionally, the man who identifies the killer argues thus: I did the murdered woman a great wrong. All my life I shall regret my cruelty. Exposing this man as the true killer will not bring her back to life. I shall therefore let him know that I know, but take no further action to bring him to justice! The justification hangs on a legalism, since evidentially, there is no legal proof with which the killer can be brought to book. For Braddon to take such an ambiguous view is not usual, as she was careful not to offend the moral sensibilities of her readership despite all the melodrama in her books,
But when all is said and written, what a story she gives us!
In this novel, steeped in all the flummery of Victorian melodrama - murder, treasure, fortune hunters and 'bad' women - emerges an almost Gissing-like realism. Can passion die a natural death with nothing to sustain it but poverty? Of course it can! Is it wrong to desert a woman you owe your life to? Yes, but you can't be grateful forever. Is it honourable to desert a woman you have wronged? No, it is not, but life happens. Is it wrong to covet a fortune? No, it is naturally mine, or should have been mine!
It is interesting to see the solution of the murder as the ex-Inspector in charge, Ins Faunce, sets out to study the crime. It is not exactly a police procedural; Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens already had produced two excellent officers in Sergeant Cuff and Inspector Bucket, and although the Scotland Yard police officer later became a stock figure of incompetence, thanks largely to the unfortunate Inspector Fred Abberline of the Ripper Case, Faunce comes close to the hardbitten and hard-hitting police officer we are familiar with today. That he failed to secure a conviction for his only suspect is a foregone conclusion, since he did not bother to look for any other. That he was created by a 'sensationalist' woman writer is all the more remarkable for its time. In this book, thanks to Faunce's comments, runs a vein of grim humour, unsuspected in Braddon's other books.
Braddon poses a serious philosophical question, which one would think needs no second thought upon the action to be taken. Indeed, the ending is questionable. In effect, Braddon says that the ends justify the means. Additionally, the man who identifies the killer argues thus: I did the murdered woman a great wrong. All my life I shall regret my cruelty. Exposing this man as the true killer will not bring her back to life. I shall therefore let him know that I know, but take no further action to bring him to justice! The justification hangs on a legalism, since evidentially, there is no legal proof with which the killer can be brought to book. For Braddon to take such an ambiguous view is not usual, as she was careful not to offend the moral sensibilities of her readership despite all the melodrama in her books,
But when all is said and written, what a story she gives us!
March 8, 2018
Rough Justice is another enjoyable Braddon story. As usual, the good characters have rough edges, and the bad guys have some likable qualities. It came to a rather abrupt end, but otherwise was s great murder/mystery/romance. Originally published in 1898. I listened to this novel as a free download from LibriVox.org
March 3, 2021
Great book; my 2nd by this author , the other one being Lady Audley’s secret; will be reading more
January 17, 2024
Not her usual quality.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews