Very engaging! Wonderful reader! Great story, really kept me turning pages. ( )

Wow! I am very impressed. This is the first ever detective fiction heroine in a full-length novel. The entire book reads like it could have been written recently but it was actually written in 1874. There is drama, suspense, romance, and some great dialogue. The author is a man and he wrote the book from the perspective of the female protagonist. From my female perspective, he did a pretty good job of it. I will definitely be reading more of Wilkie Collins' books in the future. ( )

After a brief romance and courtship, Valeria and Eustace Woodville are married. Soon after their marriage, Valeria learns that her husband's name is not really Eustace Woodville, and that he has been lying to her about other things as well. When she learns that Eustace was tried for the murder of his first wife, and at trial received the unique Scottish verdict of "not proven" (so that he was neither found to be guilty or innocent), she decides to prove his innocence.

I quite enjoyed the other two books by Wilkie Collins I have read, his more famous The Moonstone and The Woman in White. While this was of interest as perhaps featuring the earliest female sleuth in crime fiction, this one never really grabbed me. I suspect this is due more to my state of mind at the time I read this than to the book itself.

As a needleworker myself, I enjoyed this quote:

"'women,' he said, 'wisely compose their minds, and help themselves to think quietly, by doing needlework. Why are men such fools as to deny themselves the same admirable resource--the simple soothing occupation which keeps the nerves steady and leaves the mind calm and free?'"

I so agree.

3 stars ( )

Valeria Woodville has just married at the opening of this story and is ready to depart on her honeymoon, when she discovers that her husband has married her under an assumed name and is hiding a secret from his past life. The secret is that he has had a prior marriage and his first wife has died from arsenic poisoning. He was accused of her murder, stood trial, and a verdict was returned of unproven...he was not convicted, but neither was he cleared.

Valeria sets out to solve the mystery of the first wife’s death and clear her husband’s name, despite severe obstacles, which include her husband’s lack of cooperation in her efforts. What ensues is a story that includes some very interesting and strange characters and some serious red herrings that lead the reader off the path and back again. I felt it had an anti-climactic ending, and at least one character reaction that defied my ability to believe, even given its Victorian framework.

This book would probably have been better in its original serial form. I could imagine being left hanging at the end of the chapters and having to wait for the next segment. Reading it straight through, I longed for some better editing, as some sections seemed to go on forever to no real purpose. Of the Collins I have read, this one is the least captivating. I have not exhausted his works, but I suspect I may have now read the best of them. If you have not read Wilkie Collins, by all means begin with [b:The Moonstone|54442367|The Moonstone|Wilkie Collins|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1594215855l/54442367._SY75_.jpg|1044477], [b:The Woman in White|35964975|The Woman in White|Wilkie Collins|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1502217399l/35964975._SY75_.jpg|1303710], or [b:No Name|45205|No Name|Wilkie Collins|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388954088l/45205._SY75_.jpg|3242295], all excellent mysteries, which this one fails to rival.
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The later Collins novels are less successful than his 1860s ones. Not commercially - he was very well paid in those days - but the novels lost the sharpness that makes Moonstone or Woman in White really great novels. On the other hand, he used his almost independence (everyone wanted his work so he could write almost anything) to experiment - with varying success.

If you are expecting a realistic novel, you probably won't like some parts of this novel. Not that anything supernatural happens - but the novel plays with the Gothic very strongly (with not just one but two houses that will fit into the genre) and with the Dexter/Ariel relationship (although in places this leaves even the Gothic and goes straight into horror - even more than Shakespeare's Prospero/Ariel - if anything the the treatment of Ariel here is a mix between these of Ariel and Caliban in the play, with the gender flipped into female). That change of gender is there in the whole novel although it is a lot less obvious that with Dexter/Ariel a lot of the characters exhibit some characteristics that go against the accepted gender roles in these days - Valeria wants to investigate while her husbands runs away, Benjamin is meek and submissive, the Major, albeit being a Don Juan, is a gossiping busybody. And yet, outside of the grotesque of the Dexter household, the non-usual behavior is just pushing at the norms, without flipping them completely. On the other hand the disability differences (mental vs physical until it turns out that it is both on both sides) are so exaggerated that I was not sure if Collins was trying for a parody or for horror or for something in between.

When a novel starts with a woman promising to submit to her new husband and then have her disobey him within the week, you really have no idea what to expect. But then Valeria really cannot stand not learning the truth - even if it cost her everything. She needs to know what secret Eustace keeps and why he used an assumed name - or her happiness is not worth it. Considering the socio-economic status of everyone involved in the novel, there are conceivable only three reasons for Eustace's behavior: craziness in the male line, a suspect death or illegitimacy. Early in the novel any of these can fit.

The publishing in the Victorian era was pretty rigid - most new novels were coming out as three volumes edition and all novels had to fit the format (that was changing but not fast enough for Collins's work). While I was reading this one I was wondering if he would not have cut a lot of the superfluous material if he had a chance. Despite being originally serialized in The Graphic, it still conforms to the 3-volumes format - in the first Valeria learns that there is a secret, in the second she learns all about the secret and in the third the truth comes out. The weakest part is the second volume - while I enjoyed the reading of the court recordings (through the eyes of Valeria), the whole Dexter story was bizarre (even if one expected the Gothic undertones and nothing earlier in the book was pointing to them).

Collins chose to write the story as if told by an older Valeria. Someone else may have been able to pull it off but here Valeria is more of an ideal than a woman and she just does not feel real very often - things happen, we are invested into the story but Valeria feels more like a narrator than a participant. It does add a level of unreliable narration which pays off in places but writing women's voices is not one of the Collins's strengths here. It did make me wonder if what seems like a pushing of the gender roles in society is not a part of that weird writing of Valeria though - did her memories enhanced some of it?

Despite it being a very uneven novel (the middle is barely readable in places), I ended up liking it quite a lot. It is important for the evolution of the detective genre because it contains one of the first women detectives. But important and likeable are not synonyms and looking at it from that perspective actually makes the novel less of what it is. It is the mix of the Gothic and the detective fiction that makes this one enjoyable (if you like both genres anyway - I suspect fans of only one of those genres may really dislike it). Throw in some legal drama (checking some notes and/or commentaries on Scottish law when the topic arises is useful in understanding what the whole fuss is about in places) and it gets things even more confused. The mix is not perfect and it often leaves one wondering what was Collins trying to do but when the parts click together, it works well enough.

I also wonder if the end was not done in that way to appease the readers. On one hand it looks like a betrayal - the independent woman decides to submit. But if you look at the story, she never meant to be independent and at that point that was the logical thing for her to do. As much as Valeria ended up being a detective (of a type) and an independent woman, she never stopped wanting to be a wife. And in her world, reconciling the two was not easy, especially when your husband is Eustace Macallan (the less we say about him, the better).

If you had never read Collins, don't start here. But if you had read his major novels, this one may be worth checking - despite its issues. ( )