I wanted to have read a mystery in February for the mystery book club that I attend, so I picked out a mystery from the top of a book pile. It was Home by Nightfall by Charles Finch. This is the first book I've read by this author.
The novel takes place during the Victorian period which is one of my least favorite historical contexts. Not only does it contain the aristocracy of earlier periods, but hypocrisy is rampant. There is nothing that I find attractive about this era. So why did I actually read the entire book?
Maybe it was the fact that Muller, the missing man, was a pianist. I think I was hoping for some musical content. Alas, there wasn't any. Muller being missing was the pretext for the book. There wasn't much focus on him as a character or on his professional activities.
There were moments in Home By Nightfall that amused me. Charles Lenox , the dectective, had said that his brother Edmund was wasting his time by teaching women how to read. I enjoyed Edmund's cutting response. He asked Charles if the time of Molly, Edmund's deceased wife, had been valueless. He also told Charles, "I shall teach the horses to read if it pleases me."
I learned the origin of the phrase "reading them the Riot Act" from Home By Nightfall. I already knew that King George I, the first Hanovrian King of England, was afraid that the Jacobite supporters of the previous dynasty would overthrow him. I first read about Jacobites in the work of Robert Louis Stevenson when I was child. Stevenson caused me to have a sentimental attachment to Jacobites. Far more recently, I wrote about Jacobites in a review of a Steve Moretti novel on this blog here.
I have to say that if Home By Nightfall had been about Jacobites, I would have been more receptive when I read it. Victorian characters put me in a sour mood. I gave it a C grade which I consider the equivalent of two stars. Fans of the Victorian era may want to disregard my perspective and substitute their own.
No comments:
Post a Comment