A compelling historical setting and subject hampered by awkward prose.
In this third installment of a mystery series, a 19th-century San Francisco attorney and detective leads an investigation into abusive practices at an insane asylum.
In San Francisco in 1887, an unusual crew occupies 1 Nob Hill, the mansion built by railroad magnate Mark Hopkins. His widow, Mary, lives there but has dementia and serves as “benefactress” to the other occupants: Clara Foltz, California’s first female lawyer, a single mother, and the true head of the household; her brood of children; and her best friend, Ah Toy, a former Chinatown madam. With some help—including psychic assistance—the group has solved some difficult cases. Now Clara’s daughter Bertha May, 17, is pretending to be mentally unstable at the Stockton State Insane Asylum, where her friend Polly Bedford, 12, has been committed by her parents after witnessing the murder of Winnifred Cotton, 10, a Nob Hill neighbor. Bertha’s mission is to discover what Polly really saw, and the whole team wants to expose illegal commitments targeting wives, children, and immigrants. To that end, they form a citizens’ committee as the public face of the investigation while continuing undercover work. What they discover goes beyond the iniquities of false commitments into some bizarre territory—including spiritualism, telepathy, conjoined twins, and elaborate experiments carried out by eugenicists Francis Galton and Dr. Emil Kraepelin. Can justice be served? Musgrave (The Spiritualist Murders, 2018, etc.) has some potent ingredients in this fantastical stew, spiced with many real-life figures, like Foltz, Toy, Galton, Kraepelin, and Elizabeth Packard, who helped reform commitment laws in the 1860s after being confined to an asylum when she questioned her husband’s opinions. The setting is atmospheric and the subject, captivating. But clumsy writing (“Their diaphragms undulating their bosoms”), a painful German accent (“Bzychozis can ofden pe proken ven zee badient exberiences zee traumatic effent akain”), anachronisms (the terms “sexist” and “racist”), and murky paranormal phenomena mar the story. And, despite their association with eugenics, Galton and Kraepelin don’t deserve such grotesque caricatures.
A compelling historical setting and subject hampered by awkward prose.Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-943457-38-0
Page Count: 289
Publisher: EMRE Publishing Fiction
Review Posted Online: March 11, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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