The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter, by Theodora
Goss, Saga Press is a delightful amalgam and homage to characters dear to lovers
of Victorian-era literature, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Lewis
Stevenson, Mary Shelley, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Bram Stoker.
First of all –
Theodora Goss. If you don’t know her breath-takingly wonderful short fiction,
drop everything and read some. We’ll wait. Okay, ready to talk about her novel?
We begin with young, well-mannered, brilliant Mary Jekyll –
yes, that Jekyll, her father – alone
in his old house (except for the ever-faithful housekeeper, Mrs. Poole) and at
the end of her financial rope. Chance and the hope of a small bequest brings
her into contact with her hellfire and rapscallion adolescent half-sister,
Diana Hyde. Before long, the two team up with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson,
hot on the trail of whoever is murdering young women in the alleys of London
and surgically removing various body parts. The mystery brings them into
contact with Catherine Moreau (that
Moreau, a panther turned woman), Renfield, Justine Frankenstein (who is so
gentle, she’s a vegetarian pacifist), and “poison lady” Beatrice Rappaccini,
among others.
The true delight of the novel, however, arises from the
interruptions by the characters themselves, often arguing over who should tell
which part of the story and how it should be told. At first, we do not know who
all these women are, but as the tale unfolds, we see their own experiences and
personalities reflected in their sometimes witty, sometimes impudent, but
always affectionate squabbles.
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