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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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