Open Road Media
Featuring: Martha Beale; Thomas Kelman
319 pages ISBN: 0312352468 EAN: 9781480490642 Kindle: B00KI7WRSI Paperback / e-Book Add to Wish List
The Martha Beale Mystery series currently comprises
three
books; many of the characters in them are based on real
ancestors of the author, Cordelia Frances Biddle, in
Philadelphia. I had not read the others but dived straight
in to THE CONJURER, which is told in present tense.
Martha Beale is at home on the country estate one bitter
cold day when her father's dogs are found crouching,
bereft, at the riverbank. The man's hunting rifle and
creel are nearby but there is no sign of him. She has to
hope that the current carried him downstream towards
Philadelphia on the opposite shore; searches come up
empty. Martha has been fortunate in life, but even this
good household manager can't avert tragedy.
Philadelphia at this time is a city that knows poverty and
crime. There is a prison which prides itself on solitary
penance, but unfortunately only flushes the sewers out
every two weeks. We meet some of the inmates, male and
female, and learn their stories of suffering and
insufficient work. Martha is determined to start doing
worthy works, but as is fitting for a lady of her station
she turns first to the orphan home. She hopes that this
will encourage the officers and politicians to keep up the
search for her father, alive or dead. Manufacturing is
becoming a major source of wealth in the city, with
Derringer located here and cloth mills, so to furnish
their
employees' homes with gas lighting and water piping, other
men are coming forward with plans that will make their
fortunes. However, the different types of people living
crowded together distrust and resent one another, leading
to riots and attacks. A tailor with a club foot, a
prostitute and a small boy who takes fits, each experience
different hardships. None so vile as the murder of a
little
girl by a customer at Nell's House of Pleasure, though.
Can
the street people unify for long enough to find this evil
brute? And how will Martha the lady of gentility, play a
a part?
I had to admire the research behind this work. Anyone
interested in the turbulent history of Philadelphia will
enjoy this mystery, which is not for the faint of heart,
but uses the strongly-drawn characters to bring aspects of
the past to life. Cordelia Frances Biddle crams a lot into
THE CONJURER, while leaving us with the promise of spring
and more mystery in Deception's Daughter.
An heiress breaks free of social conventions and attempts to solve the mystery of her father’s disappearance in 1842 Philadelphia in Cordelia Frances Biddle’s first Martha Beale mystery When her father fails to appear for lunch at their country estate, Martha Beale knows something is wrong. The family’s faithful dogs discover Lemuel Beale’s hunting rifle by the river, but there is no sign of the millionaire financier. Refusing to believe he is dead, his daughter—and sole heir—begins a discreet investigation with the help of the mayor’s aide, Thomas Kelman. But Philadelphia in 1842 is a dangerous place for a female, especially a twenty-six-year-old single woman. Martha’s quest for answers takes her from the pinnacle of high society, which is abuzz about a visiting European conjurer who communicates with the dead, to the city’s tragic slums where a brutal killer is targeting young prostitutes—and through it all Martha will confront the most ruthless aspects of human nature. In a story deeply rooted in time and place and brimming with atmosphere and suspense, Cordelia Frances Biddle conjures a mesmerizing world of intrigue and hidden desires.
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