- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Minotaur Books; First Edition edition (Aug 19 2008)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0312352476
- ISBN-13: 978-0312352479
- Product Dimensions: 20.7 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 386 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,272,673 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
Praise for Cordelia Frances Biddle and the Martha Beale Mysteries
“A first-rate mystery.”
---Julia Spencer-Fleming, author of I Shall Not Want, on The Conjurer
“A feast for those fans who enjoy engaging characters and may attract readers who loved Caleb Carr’s attention to detail in The Alienist and Jacqueline Winspear’s appealing sleuth, Maisie Dobbs.”
---Library Journal on The Conjurer
“A good read . . . skillfully evokes the elegant society salons and grubby streets of 1842 Philadelphia.”
---Philadelphia Magazine on Deception's Daughter
“Biddle has done more than devise an engaging story populated by memorable characters. She has managed to restore to us an earlier Philadelphia, [which is] intact and alive.”
---Jon Clinch, author of Finn on Deception’s Daughter
“An intricately orchestrated narrative . . . Biddle wonderfully evokes the color and culture of the time.”
---Publishers Weekly on The Conjurer
“Fresh and believable. Biddle knows her manner and her city, and shows both to great advantage.”
---Cleveland Plain Dealer on The Conjurer
“Corruption, clairvoyance, and family connections abound as you are transported back in time to the richly detailed world of Martha Beale. A smart and sumptuous series awaits.”
---Mary Alice Gorman, co-owner of Mystery Lovers Bookshop (Oakmont, Pennsylvania), on The Conjurer
"Offers fully human characters and a credible plot. Exceptional attention to period detail helps transport the reader to a past very unlike our own and yet so similar."
---Publishers Weekly on Deception's Daughter
Product Description
Critics raved about The Conjurer, the first in Cordelia Frances Biddle’s superb historical mystery series. Now Philadelphian heiress Martha Beale is back in a second thrilling installment laced with fast-paced intrigue and exquisite period detail.
When the daughter of one of Philadelphia’s finest families disappears, Martha Beale becomes the unwilling liaison between the girl’s aloof and aristocratic parents and Thomas Kelman, Martha’s secret beau, who is overseeing the investigation.
What appears to be a kidnapping, however, takes a darker turn, and complex clues implicate rich and poor alike. It is up to Martha and Kelman to unravel the diabolical plot--and the painful disparity of their social classes--as they struggle to unmask the killer.
As in The Conjurer, Cordelia Frances Biddle’s elegant and evocative prose brings to vibrant life mid-nineteenth-century Philadelphia. Deception’s Daughter is a stunning sequel from a multitalented crime writer.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.0 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Solid Historical Mystery Suffers From too Many Loose Ends, Nov 5 2009
By Erimini - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Deception's Daughter (Hardcover)
First of all, I have to admit I stumbled across the second book of this series first and I have yet to read the first book.
And it is certainly readable and enjoyable when read out of order. Everything you need to know about the characters is mentioned when they are (re)introduced without getting hammered with the knowledge all at once, not an easy thing to do in a multiple book series.
The writing itself takes a bit of getting used to (since it is written in the third person present tense probably to enable the reader to get "inside the head" of different major characters.) But, it is well worth the effort since the author has a gift for evoking the period, and an eye for detail especially with the class diferences and the workings of the Philadelphia.
My major criticism with the book is that, although the major mystery (the disappearance of a young upper-class woman) is resolved, the book itself feels like there is no conclusion. Too many unrelated plotlines are mentioned and then dropped (presumably to be picked up in the next book.)
People are introduced, deeds hinted at, and then never really developed. They seem like they should be important, but they peter off into nothing and we're left with wondering why they were mentioned at all.
For instance, Martha (whom the series is named after, although she doesn't actually do much sleuthing herself) sees a young woman commit suicide early in the book (although she doesn't know later that's what the young woman has done.) The suicide mentioned numerous times, as is the fact that other people know who she is (though the authorities and the reader never find out.) The suicide is blond, like the missing girl. Do the keepers of the "poor house" (Blockley House) know who she is? Is it related to the missing girl? Or is the sole reason for the suicide's existence the introduction of the boy who reported her? In which case, why keep returning to her again and again without having something new to say about her?
Maybe if I had waited for book 3 to have been released, I would understand these seemingly extraneous elements and find them more acceptable. Perhaps, the first book is filled with similar dangling threads, I'll have to see.
So, while I enjoyed this book, I would recommend waiting to read it until the next one is available unless you don't mind that not everything in the book is related or resolved.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fans of Maisie Dobbs, take note, July 13 2009
By Debra Hamel - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Deception's Daughter (Hardcover)
Deception's Daughter is the second book in Cordelia Frances Biddle's series of Martha Beale mysteries. Martha is an heiress living in mid-19th century Philadelphia. Her enviable financial situation has made her more than usually free to determine her own fate with respect to marriage. She has her sights on Thomas Kelman, an investigator working in conjunction with Philadelphia's mayor, despite that he's an unsuitable match for her by society's standards. In this outing Martha and Thomas must contend with a series of problems in addition to their romantic fumblings and misunderstandings--most seriously, the disappearance of the daughter of one of Philadelphia's leading families. The book takes readers from the well-appointed drawing rooms of Philadelphia's finest to the sorry confines of an almshouse to the city's lowest dives, where some of the aristocratic suspects in the girl's disappearance are wont to go slumming.
This is the first historical fiction I've read from Cordelia Biddle, but I doubt it will be my last. (Biddle is also the co-author, with her husband, of a series of crossword mysteries published under the pseudonym Nero Blanc.) Deception's Daughter offers a solid mystery, rich period detail, good writing, and likable characters who protest against but are ultimately hemmed in by the starchy confines of their times. On the negative side, there are a couple of chapters in which the tone of the book shifts subtly, when the author is describing a trip taken by the fiancé of the girl who's gone missing, which I found mildly distracting. Also, there is one passage in which Martha appears to have a prophetic dream, though this seems out of keeping with the rest of the narrative and isn't explained.
While the main mystery of Deception's Daughter is solved at the book's end, Martha's romantic life and smaller family-related problems are left unsettled, awaiting the next book in Biddle's series. I'll be happy to pick up the story when number three is released. Fans of Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs series may find the Martha Beale books to their taste.
-- Debra Hamel
5.0 out of 5 stars
Enjoyed it so much, I just got the third in the series!, Mar 13 2010
By C. Dietrich - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Deception's Daughter (Hardcover)
The second in Biddle's series packs an even stronger emotional punch than the first. With several plotlines and finely nuanced characterizations, she kept me guessing to the end, and her deft depiction of the romantic relationship between Martha and Thomas Kelman added to the tension. This novel has it all: young love, hideous secrets, fearlessness, daring and revenge. Biddle's a writer to watch.
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