Review

Rating: 7

What a book! It took me nine months to get through it. Not because it wasn’t good–for it was, quite–but simply because of the density of both the story and the writing.
It’s hard to sum up a book of such intricacy, but here is my attempt: a story of one overarching deception perpetrated in 1850s London, told from the perspectives of its victims, perpetrators, and even a few ancillary characters. It’s unique in that approach, and never more artfully done. The writing has all the character and charm you’d expect of Dickens–Wilkie was his compatriot–and the various viewpoints from which the story is told allows for variety in voice that kept the narrative from getting stale.
Well worth the read, if for nothing more than the descriptions of Marian Halcombe and Count Fosco, both of which are some of the best I’ve ever read.