Helpful Score: 1
This is the second Charles Maddox mystery I have read, the first being The Solitary House, and I have to say that I enjoyed A Fatal Likeness much more. That is probably because I'm more familiar with the Shelley circle than with Dickens, Wilkie Collins, and Bleak House. In reading the first novel, I had the sense of missing out on something, but not this time.
The year is 1850, and young detective Charles Maddox is moving into the home of his uncle, the prime detective of his own time, who has suffered a debilitating stroke, apparently in response to a visit from a potential client: Sir Percy Shelley, the only surviving child of the famous poet and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley. Charles picks up the case and is asked by Sir Percy and his wife to investigate a person who has papers that could be damaging to both his mother's reputation and his father's legacy. But as Charles soon learns, there are usually two--and sometimes more--sides to every story. Secrets from the past begin to unfold, some of them appearing to involve the elder Maddox in some very unprofessional and unsavory business. What really happened in the years that Mary and Percy Shelley were together? What role did Claire Clairmont play? Was Shelley's wife Harriet's death truly a suicide--or something more sinister? Was Shelley really the cruel, narcissistic devil that Charles suspects? And was the now-aging Mary, nothing but an angel who had endured her husband's misbehavior, the loss of three infants, and an early widowhood?
I'm not usually a reader of mysteries, but I do enjoy historical fiction, and I found myself fairly caught up with this story (as impossible as I found some points in the plot). The character of Charles Maddox was much less fleshed out than in The Solitary House, so those who haven't read that book might not find him so engaging. Shepherd writes well and does a fine job of recreating the atmosphere of Victorian London. However, in both Maddox novels, I felt that the conclusions were rushed and rather confusing. She seems to want to force a twist at the end, but it isn't handled very smoothly: not sure of just what had happened, I had to go back and reread the last 20 pages or so in order to understand who these new characters were, how they figured into the mystery as a whole, and, ultimately, what the significance of the title was (since there were multiple "likenesses" of sorts).
Despite its flaws, not a bad summer read.
The year is 1850, and young detective Charles Maddox is moving into the home of his uncle, the prime detective of his own time, who has suffered a debilitating stroke, apparently in response to a visit from a potential client: Sir Percy Shelley, the only surviving child of the famous poet and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley. Charles picks up the case and is asked by Sir Percy and his wife to investigate a person who has papers that could be damaging to both his mother's reputation and his father's legacy. But as Charles soon learns, there are usually two--and sometimes more--sides to every story. Secrets from the past begin to unfold, some of them appearing to involve the elder Maddox in some very unprofessional and unsavory business. What really happened in the years that Mary and Percy Shelley were together? What role did Claire Clairmont play? Was Shelley's wife Harriet's death truly a suicide--or something more sinister? Was Shelley really the cruel, narcissistic devil that Charles suspects? And was the now-aging Mary, nothing but an angel who had endured her husband's misbehavior, the loss of three infants, and an early widowhood?
I'm not usually a reader of mysteries, but I do enjoy historical fiction, and I found myself fairly caught up with this story (as impossible as I found some points in the plot). The character of Charles Maddox was much less fleshed out than in The Solitary House, so those who haven't read that book might not find him so engaging. Shepherd writes well and does a fine job of recreating the atmosphere of Victorian London. However, in both Maddox novels, I felt that the conclusions were rushed and rather confusing. She seems to want to force a twist at the end, but it isn't handled very smoothly: not sure of just what had happened, I had to go back and reread the last 20 pages or so in order to understand who these new characters were, how they figured into the mystery as a whole, and, ultimately, what the significance of the title was (since there were multiple "likenesses" of sorts).
Despite its flaws, not a bad summer read.
