M. E. Braddon
5 Bücher
- If you liked Lady Audley's Secret, this is Braddon in a warmer mood: Aurora is impulsive and flawed (she horsewhips a stablehand in one startling scene) but you end up rooting for her anyway. It's melodrama with blackmail and a murder, so come ready for that.
- Half the fun is watching Robert Audley, a lazy barrister who'd rather read French novels, get dragged into playing detective when his friend vanishes. It's Victorian gossip at its most deliciously wicked, and that portrait scene alone tells you Braddon knew exactly what she was doing.
- You’ll be glad you read it for Jabez North’s wonderfully cold scheming and Jack the Sphinx, a dwarf detective who seems to have wandered in from a fever dream. It’s lurid, eccentric, and occasionally clumsy, but the strange turns and theatrical atmosphere make this early Braddon hard to forget.