Mostly Murders

Lord bless us! it was a Diamond! As large, or nearly, as a plover’s egg! The light that streamed from it was like the light of the harvest moon.

A fabled diamond known as the Moonstone and said to be cursed is stolen from its new owner after a birthday dinner at the Verinder Estate in England, and the solution to the mystery is drawn out over a period of around a year before the final reveal of what actually happened.

I’ve been wanting to read The Moonstone for a while for two reasons. Firstly because it is often said to be the first modern detective novel in English literature, and secondly because it is said to have been an inspiration for Agatha Christie’s many novels.

The first half of this novel does feel a lot like an Agatha Christie story. There is a household full of guests and servants, a useless local superintendant and an odd and brilliant detective called in to save the day, and an opinionated narrator who is a very old-fashioned, trusted family servant.

But after that the story takes a different turn. Told by different characters who were present at different times and places, the tale abandons the fateful night at the Verinder Estate, branching out to describe various related but different events, and treats the reader to a whole range of much shorter narratives told by various different characters, all adding their own spin to their account of the events that follow.

It is an interesting take on a mystery, highlighting how narrators can be unreliable, not because they wish to be untruthful, but due to their inherent biases, desires and personalities leading them to draw their own conclusions.

Part mystery, part romance, part Victorian-era drama, The Moonstone is sometimes witty, sometimes sober and definitely worth a read if you’re interested in early English detective novels and not intimidated by the idea of reading a 500+ page book from 1868.

Mystery – Historical fiction