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I read THE DEAD LETTER & THE FIGURE EIGHT during a power cut, and have to admit I was very pleased when the lights came back on! These are a couple of forgotten gems from the 1860s, coupled up in a new volume by Duke University Press. Metta Fuller Victor wrote under the pseudonym Seeley Regester and was the first American author, male or female, to write a full-length detective novel. Victor was a true Renaissance woman. She was a publisher, author, editor and moral reformer, writing pieces against slavery, alcohol and Mormon polygamy. She and her husband Orville Victor built up the Beadle publishing empire. Catherine Ross Nickerson's thoughtful forward to the volume is well worth reading for the full story on Victor. The books have wonderful echoes of the gothic. There are haunted houses, spooky night-time encounters, mysterious women who disappear and reappear, sinister governesses and ne'er do well relatives. And the distant wails from the trains was particularly eerie in my candle-lit front room. THE FIGURE EIGHT is the pick of the pair. It features Joe Meredith, a young man suspected of murdering his uncle. He is forced to flee his small town, and dons a variety of disguises whilst he hunts down the person responsible for the poisoning. It's a real page-turner and also features gutsy female characters in Joe's cousin Lillian and the enigmatic governess Miss Miller. Victor keeps the reader guessing right to the end as to the identity of the murderer, as well as the mystery of the figure 8 which Dr Meredith drew with his dying breath. THE DEAD LETTER is equally intriguing, but lacks the pacing of THE FIGURE EIGHT. Again, it focuses in on a small-town family where a young attorney Richard Redfield is involved in finding who stabbed the fiance of one of Richard's adopted family. The book's main interest is that of the New York detective Mr Burton, who leads the hunt to find the killer. The character is a fascinating predecessor of the many policemen who will follow in the genre, but also very much in keeping with the gothic tradition, with his daughter Lenore and her mysterious powers. These are more than just period pieces with some novelty value. They are in fact well-crafted novels which deserve your attention, whether you are fascinated by the origins of the genre, a fan of period crime fiction or simply someone looking for a rewarding read.
Reviewed by Sharon Wheeler, February 2004
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