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THE CONJUROR
by Cornelia Frances Biddle
St Martin's Minotaur, February 2007
320 pages
$23.95
ISBN: 0312352468


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

I want some credit for reading this book. While I'm not enamored of the Victorian era as many readers (and seemingly mystery writers), I thought it would educate me as well as entertain me to read THE CONJUROR. It wasn't that long and hey, it was at the top of the stack.

My almost-immediate hesitation came on reading that the author was one-half of a writing team responsible for a series I truly dislike – okay, I dislike the one book I read. And in this case, as with that book, I found myself reading to the end and I don't know why. (I admit that I skipped a few paragraphs here and there toward the end, but read enough to review the complete book).

THE CONJUROR alas, is turgid. After about 50 or 60 pages, I found myself making mental 'roll on' hand gestures, feeling as if I was being given the same information repeatedly, watching the same actions, hearing the same words. If Biddle intended to show us how slow everything was back then, and how decisions were made with endless plodding and deliberation, I got it. Certainly, some of that is true to life; messages had to be hand-carried, or brought by someone on horseback. Everything took time. But I thought the narrative was a dreadful slow crawl. Everything was either hammered home too often or was so clearly telegraphed that I longed to get to the end well before the book ended.

Martha Beale is part of the problem; she's the protagonist and she's simply not very interesting. She's not only a complaisant, rather dull woman in her mid-20s who – gasp – is unmarried (dreadful in her level of high society) but she also has nothing much to say or do. She has lived in the shadow of her father, being there for him, taking whatever expression he most desires when he enters the room. When he disappears one wintry day, she's at a complete loss and leaves much to daddy's private secretary, a hugely annoying pompous jerk who treats her as a child. She allows it for far too long.

Of course the reader is meant to hope that she'll find her spine wherever she left it but it took too long. I tired of Martha's weenieness, while trying very hard to sympathize with her lot. As a woman in her era, she was not expected to do much but adorn a man's arm, be a 'helpmeet'. No one expected a woman of her societal level to have brains, gumption, initiative – unless perhaps it was about a daring pudding for the next dinner party.

After Lemuel Beale disappears, she finally acts and tries to work in a charity home for orphans. After one visit, well, it's all just too much for Martha. She meets a nice man but cannot truly be allowed to be seen with him alone – this being of course true of the times – but she's just tiresome in her constant "oh well, I'll just give up." Flutter, flutter.

Meanwhile there are murders and subplots and far too much "wasn't it awful back then?" Yes it was. Institutionalized racism, punishing the poor as deserving their fate, the imposing of total silence on prisoners (in the hope that they would find a godly path) women as chattel and worse, yes, it was a very unlovely world. The escapism of spiritualism, mediums and the like that was rampant during those times is part of the story but frankly, is baffling.

The weird 'Eusapio Paladino' is never really explained nor incorporated into the story; women flocked to such people wanting to hear from their dear departed mama or the child lost in childbirth. But how did he know what he knew, what was his purpose in this story, except to express some baffling words in Italian? And what of Emily Durand, the spoiled rich woman who has no purpose in life but to be spoiled and rich? She's a model for today's famous-for-being-famous 'celebrities'. So how is it that in the last act, she suddenly becomes caring and resourceful and acts on behalf of Martha? Why? There's no explanation for Durand's eleventh hour turnaround.

Several disparate threads came together all too neatly toward the end, as I had been dreading – it was telegraphed from the start. When I finally learned who the mysterious Mr Robey was, I was far past caring. I don't like reading about grotesque sexual murders and I thought the author spent far too much time both describing them and drawing out the horror and the suspense.

There are several women who almost come to life in this book and I expect that was something Biddle wanted to happen, as she comes from the old rich Philadelphians described here. I'm sure she wants us to understand that not all of them sat around admiring themselves all day, but the fluttering and hesitations, the constant backing down when any man frowns at them, the obvious "well what can a woman do in this situation?" message, like every other 'message', got tiresome.

Someone will like this book and overlook all these flaws just as readers have apparently enjoyed Biddle's work as half of Nero Blanc (in my review of THE CROSSWORD MURDER in that series, which I described as "a fairly bad book", I called the suspects annoying, nasty, evil folks and wished they'd all done it so they could all be locked up.

If Martha Beale is to come to life (the cover blurb reads "A Martha Beale Mystery" hinting that there are more to come) she's going to have to have a huge personality transplant. Something must happen to make her at all interesting. A few fewer coincidences would help too. The author must learn not to go over old ground again and again. And again. Good luck with that.

Reviewed by Andi Shechter, February 2007

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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