victoriana, scoundrels, and mysterious grey eyes: Brian Thompson’s The Widow’s Secret
Brian Thompson’s The Widow’s Secret is one of those novels that is so close to a great read that it’s almost more upsetting than a truly badly written book would be. Plus, I really loved the cover, and for some reason, loving the cover gets me a long way to rooting for the book itself to be great.
But… on to the novel. Bella Wallis is a widow, and a sensational novelist, and uses the freedom found in the former to find material for her career as the later. She is not a detective by choice, but her work as a novelist puts her into contact with many of the most diabolical members of the upper-class, and she often uses her novels to punish and shame those in society whom she feels deserve it.
Bella writes almost exclusively about the upper class. It is the circle she operates in, and she feels strongly that many criminals get away with what they do because of who they are. She is not immune to the suffering of the lower class, however. Soon, a friend, who she uses as a connection to the lower-class in London, tells her of the murder of a prostitute. Lying on the ground next to the body was a cigar-box, marked with the family crest of a dangerous man that Bella has come into contact with before.
Bella immediately becomes embroiled in what is very clearly a dangerous mystery. She discovers that the prostitute was not the first death to lay at the door of the killer, and Bella and her friends put themselves in real danger to follow and track the murderer down. Unfortunately, there is not quite enough suspence to carry the feeling of terror the reader should feel. The murderer, whatever his rank, is a bona-fide monster, but he never seems as frightening as the bogie-man of childhood nightmares.
Instead, I found myself more interested in Bella and the various descriptions of life in the Victorian Era than in the mystery. Bella is almost too perfect a character, and the fact that every person who comes into contact with her, male or female, seems to fall for her immediately can be distracting at times. She is, however, refreshingly complex, both in her approach to love and to her place as a detective. The fact that she struggles with the idea of getting deeper into the mystery and sincerely questions her place as a writer instead of a detective adds depth to what could be considered a cliche of the female-writer who also detects. That, coupled with what must be some of the most eccentric supporting characters ever, gives the book a feel of the “one that nearly made it”. The book becomes less about the mystery and the murderer and more about how Bella reacts to being a detective living the life that she normally only writes about. It was worth the read, if not as engrossing as I had wished. If there is a sequel, I’ll certainly pick it up, and hope that the mystery lives up to the promise of the characters involved in it.