Review: The Solitary House by Lynn Shepherd

If you've read Charles Dickens' BLEAK HOUSE then Lynn Shepherd's THE SOLITARY HOUSE will probably seem more familiar to you than it did to me. Written by Shepherd to mark Charles Dickens' Bicentenary, this is a dark, atmospheric, expertly researched Victorian mystery with an enigmatic ending you won't soon forget.

In fact, THE SOLITARY HOUSE was one of the titles, Dickens considered giving his BLEAK HOUSE. Of course I didn't know that going in, but it makes sense. However, it's just as well things worked out as they did. Though 'Bleak' and 'Solitary' are both excellent words, applied to the existence of the wretched poor of Victorian London.

However, a minor quibble, I confess I found myself a bit lost along the way while reading this auxiliary (that's what I'm calling it, anyway) tale which features some of the characters drawn from Dickens coupled with the very bleak atmospherics Shepherd (and Dickens) were/are so good at. (I've been meaning to read BLEAK HOUSE and have a nice hardcover version right near the top of one of my TBR pile of books practically staring me in the face. Just haven't gotten around to it.)

But I think if like me, you're not familiar with the original source, it's best to read THE SOLITARY HOUSE without thinking much of Dickens (if you can help it). On its own this is a brilliantly  conceived and written mystery set mostly on the poor side of London town, not a place I would have cared to linger in reality. Believe me you will be caught up in Shepherd's grim tale. But if you're very familiar with BLEAK HOUSE, it will likely color your view of Shepherd's book one way or the other. On the whole, I think, it would be a positive view. Shepherd is a very fine writer.

Note: I loved her previous book which took characters from Jane Austen's MANSFIELD PARK and turned the classic story into a very delicious mystery, MURDER AT MANSFIELD PARK. Once you read this current book, you'll want to travel further back in English history to Regency times and give that one a whirl as well. Lynn Shepherd is one of the more daring writers out there.

To read this very talented author is to fall deep into the clutches of a different world - in THE SOLITARY HOUSE - it is the pitiless, foul and dank side of 1850 London, where the poor are left (literally) to sink or swim. Does the term 'baby farm' cause you to take a deep breath of revulsion? Yeah, me too. It was not a pleasant world.

This is the unsparing background in which we find Charles Maddox, once a police officer, now toiling as a sort of private detective (Victorian version). With the help of his legendary uncle Maddox, a brilliant 'thief taker' now sadly suffering from something very similar to Alzheimer's disease, Charles manages to scratch out a living.

When he is approached by Tulkington, a sinister well-to-do lawyer and keeper of secrets of the rich, on a fairly simple matter - tracing a sender of anonymous letters, Charles suspects something more is amiss, but he can't afford to turn down the case and doesn't.

The story is revealed from the point of view of three different characters and while I always say I don't like that sort of thing, I don't seem to mind it when it's well done. The characters 'borrowed' from Dickens' classic are: Lady Dedlock (what a great name), Mr. Tulkington a crooked lawyer, police Inspector Bucket who really comes to life in the second half of the book as we learn and are reminded that appearances can be so deceiving, and the rather simple Hester (Esther, I'm told, in the original) who narrates her own story with its own heartbreaking denouement which dovetails near the end with Charles' ever more dangerous investigation.

I know I've used this word before, but it fits, so I'll use it again; this is a byzantine plot which works in several story lines, one of a missing mother and child, and such vile secrets from the past and present and corruption so hard to fathom, so repulsive, that you will hardly believe your eyes. There are also the first preliminary killings (unrecorded as such) by the psychotic killer who will, in future be known as Jack the Ripper.

The revelations when they come will cause you to read the final chapters in dread. Minor quibble aside, this is a superb book, though not perhaps, for the very squeamish. Still and all, buck up and read the thing, you will be enthralled.

Saturday Salon: A Victorian Frame of Mind

Departure Platform at Victoria Station 

The Orphan

Going to Business

I'm just beginning the new book by Lynn Shepherd who wrote the fascinating mystery, MURDER AT MANSFIELD PARK, a re-telling of MANSFIELD PARK by Jane Austen with murder and mystery setting the Regency era on its ear. I loved it and recommend it highly.

This year's book is THE SOLITARY HOUSE, a mystery based on Charles Dickens' classic, BLEAK HOUSE. I've just begun it this morning and am very much expecting to be bowled over as I was with Shepherd's previous book. To learn about Lynn Shepherd and her writing, please use this link.

This is also my long-winded way of saying that I am now in Victorian mode, hence I am sharing three of my very favorite James Tissot paintings with you. I've written about the French artist Tissot before on this blog, but far as I'm concerned, you can't say enough or see enough of his work.

To learn about James Jacques Joseph Tissot (1836 - 1902), please use this link.

Murder At Mansfield Park by Lynn Shepherd

Despite the dramatics of my last post, I am back to reading today. All's well that ends well. I remain philosophical about this whole 'playing catch-up' business - or, anyway, as philosophical as I'm likely to get. Luckily for me, I've just finished reading a purely terrific book. (And doesn't that usually cure all ills?) I wasn't going to review the book (you'll see why in a second), but I think I will do so, despite my hesitation.

MURDER AT MANSFIELD PARK by Lynn Shepherd is a wonderful literary conceit. Shepherd takes Jane Austen's Mansfield Park characters and storyline and twists them around to suit the requirements of the genteel mystery novel. As a debut, especially, it is astonishingly self-assured.

My initial hesitation to review is based on the fact that I've never read Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. I can't make comparisons or point out strengths and/or weaknesses between the two books. I believe that those of you who've read the Austen original may find MURDER AT MANSFIELD PARK even more entertaining and deliciously wicked than I do. But having said that, I will add that my review is, necessarily, based solely on my reading Shepherd's book as a stand-alone mystery - the characters and locale all new to me.

My personal Austen favorites are: Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion. I'd given up, a while back, attempting to read Austen pastiches because, in general, the modern-day writing suffered so in comparison to the original. Well, how could it not? Perhaps I was expecting too much. But my feeling is, if you're going to do something, i.e. replicate a certain style of writing, do it well or not at all.

Author Lynn Shepherd has a doctorate in English literature from Oxford University, so I expected a lot from her attempt at doctoring Austen. I am happy to say, as far as I'm concerned, she has delivered the goods. She gets the cadence of the Austen style. The terminology, formation of sentences and dialogue appear, in her 21st century hands, authentic enough. I had a fine time reading this book though I wasn't as familiar with the characters as others might be. I'm thinking now that, at some point, I should probably go ahead and read the original Mansfield Park though I've heard nothing but uninspiring comments about the insipidness of its 'heroine', Miss Fanny Price.

In this version of events at Mansfield Park, Miss Fanny Price becomes a murder victim - wishful thinking, I expect. She is, in this incarnation, a spiteful, willful young woman who will be in possession of a great fortune upon her coming-of-age birthday, just before her untimely death.

As you may imagine, murder in the pleasant English countryside of well-to-do Austen-imagined households throws an entire cast of characters into turmoil. Fine manners are one thing, but manners are hard to maintain when it becomes obvious that a murderer lurks among the genteel trappings.

The heroine of the piece is the less well-to-do Mary Crawford, neighbor to the Bertrams of Mansfield Park, sister to the rakish landscaper Henry Crawford, and as stalwart, intelligent and even-tempered a young woman, as Fanny Price is not. Mary, unconventionally, works with the astute thief-taker Charles Maddox, who has been called in from London, to try and find Fanny's murderer.

MURDER AT MANSFIELD PARK is, in general, a very intime sort of murder mystery, taking place as it does in a well regulated locale, a significant country house peopled by family and a house full of servants. If it had, indeed, been written during Austen's time, it would have been viewed as the first official mystery/detective story - an unlikely precursor to Agatha Christies's country house mysteries (or even earlier, Wilkie Collins) written during the 1920's and 30's. The ingredients are all there and Lynn Shepherd manipulates them very well. I truly enjoyed reading MURDER AT MANSFIELD PARK, this story - I hesitate to call it a pastiche, since it stands very well on its own - is an excellent historical mystery. I wish we may read more about the canny thief-taker Charles Maddox, in future novels.

See Lynn Shepherd talk about her book, here. Thanks to Jane Austen's World for the initial link.