Hyde
sets her story in New York City during the early 1880s. Chester A, Arthur is
president following the assassination of James Garfield, and the infamous Boss
Tweed is rotting in prison, convicted on more than two hundred counts of
corruption, though Tammany Hall and the old political patronage system are
still in full operation, with the tentacles of influence reaching deep into the
poorer quarters of Manhattan, the fast-rising tenements of new immigrant
communities and nativist conclaves alike. The phonograph, the telephone, and
the electric light bulb are all in their curious infancies. A fascinating and
colorful era to be sure, witnessing the birth of much that the world would come
to know as “modern”. Yet there are some things even this most
self-congratulatory “forward-looking” of times was hardly ready to acknowledge,
let alone accept. Portraying detective Charlotte Olmes and her assistant/companion
Joanna Wilson as a lesbian couple in the deeply closeted culture of the Gilded
Age lends an element of dramatic tension and transgressive intrigue to the
story, the threat of humiliation, blackmail and “ruin” lurking behind every
dark corner. (I hope Hyde will explore these issues in greater depth in subsequent
stories, especially as she so skillfully avoids mawkishness, or cheap
titillation in her realistic and likeable portrayal of this relationship.)
And
I do like these characters, not simply because it’s fun to recognize their
roots in the Sherlock Holmes stories. Hyde’s quirky, brilliant, moody Charlotte
Olmes could well hold her own against Doyle’s eccentric genius. She is an
example of a type that still fascinates to this day—a tradition stretching from
Hypatia of Alexandria to George Sand, Calamity Jane and Gertrude Stein—the
strong, independent, freethinking woman, unafraid to break the rules, which
are, after all, made by and for men. Particularly in the Victorian period, such
women were looked upon with suspicion and outright condescension—perhaps masking
a deep-seeded dread—their accomplishments all-too-often redacted from “official”
record. It’s then something akin to a stroke of genius for Hyde to make Olmes’
partner, Joanna, the top in the bedchamber.
A
few small quibbles. One involves narrative point-of-view. The book opens with a
portrayal of a crime, related in third person. With no clearly delineated
section breaks, readers are then immediately immersed in Joanna’s
Dr.-Watson-like first-person account. Again, without clear breaks or new
chapter headings, we are tossed from time to time back into third person,
following the criminal as he moves towards his inevitable capture and
downfall—a portrayal which seems neither necessary or particularly effective. This sort of shifting would be acceptable, but
without some typographical device to offer fair warning it tends to induce
vertigo. There are some basic (face-palm inducting) copyediting oversights and
examples of poor formatting here and there, which, readers may hope, will be
corrected for the subsequent print and further electronic editions. (And how
difficult is it, after all, to revise an e-book?)
Granted,
I do tend to pick up on small details, which faster, more casual readers might
simply never notice. Most who read for
pleasure are quite willing to forgive the occasional typographic faux pas if there’s a good story to be
enjoyed.
But
all bad-tempered-inner-copyeditor complaints aside, there is most assuredly a
good story here. And if my prognosticative skills are anywhere up to snuff, I
foresee Debra Hyde’s Charlotte Olmes series becoming a very popular and
successful franchise, the new de regaire
for vacation and beach-reading, or just the thing to curl up with by a warm
fire on a bleak winter’s night; the perfect literary snack, light, refreshing, digestible
and delicious.
Recommended.
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