Monday, August 12, 2013

A Fatal Likeness

A FATAL LIKENESS
Lynn Shepherd
Random House
August 20, 2013

The third entry in the Charles Maddox Victorian mystery series (after Murder At Mansfield Park and The Solitary House) finds Charles living in his Great-Uncle and mentor's home, also named Charles. The elder Charles was a famous and respected thief-taker but is now suffering the effects of what appears to be Altzheimers. When a caller leaves a card for the younger Charles, the uncle sees it and has a stroke, leaving him even more impaired. The name on the card is Percy Shelley, son of the famous Romantic Poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley.

The younger Shelley and his wife, Jane, ask Charles to discover who is in possession of papers centering on the famous summer spent at Lake Geneva by Shelley, Mary Shelley, Lord Byron and Claire Clairmont (Mary's stepsister). This is the summer of 1816 in which the idea for Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was born.  Shepherd has intensively researched the remaining records for that year and the two years proceeding. Filling in the gaps of those records , she has come up with an ugly brew of suicide, murder, madness, and possible infanticide among a group of monstrously overwrought and entitled young people.  There was genius among them, but they were also obsessive in their loves and more importantly, hates. As Charles tries to find out what really happened, he discovers that his uncle was involved. Indeed, his uncle has hidden all records of his involvement.  

While I applaud Ms. Shepherd's research and encyclopedic knowledge of the times, I am afraid that I can't recommend A Fatal Likeness. The various plot lines are so convoluted, the names so similar I found it somewhat difficult to keep up with just exactly who was who. The novel was a slog for me throughout and the characters and story left me with a "bad taste". I had liked Charles Maddox very much in the first two novels of the series but his ability to ignore unpleasant facts about himself surprised and disappointed me.  The use of an "omniscient narrator" is at best annoying, and at worst, somewhat condescending.

Thanks to Random House and netgalley.com for an advance digital copy in return for an honest review.

RATING- 2 stars

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