Just Finished Reading: The Silversmith’s Wife by Sophia Tobin (FP: 2014) [420pp] 

Berkeley Square, London, 1792. Few of the local residents were particularly surprised when the body of silversmith Pierre Renard was found dead, with his throat cut, on the frozen ground of a nearby park. Although shocked that a murder had taken place in the Square a man with so many enemies, so they thought, was bound to be living on borrowed time. Naturally suspicion fell on his wife, the weak and intensely private Mary. But no one had seen the murder and few believed that such a mouse of a woman had the killer instinct no matter how her husband had treated her. What even fewer knew, or even suspected, was that Renard, a man who held himself in particularly high esteem, was leading a double life. With entry into the homes of the rich and established because of his apparent skill with silver, he was able to cast his eye and extend his charm over women far superior to his disappointing spouse. Such things rarely end well, as he was to find out on a dark night staring at his lover's window...  

I had reasonable hopes for this one. From the blurb on the back, it had the feel of a Gothic mystery which I like. It definitely had some elements of that genre. The dark and cold city streets, especially around the Square itself, were well drawn and you could almost feel the cold lapping at your ankles. Mary was a suitably tragic ‘non-entity’ who had been crushed by her husband's malignant indifference and obvious disappointment and there was an almost Dickensian feel to the sub-culture of the night-watchmen and constable's looking into the crime. BUT... Before I get into my critique of the novel, I have to say a few things that impressed me. This was the author’s first novel and shows very few of the faults' we readers are more than aware of. There is a slight element of throwing in the kitchen sink into the story but nowhere near the levels I’ve seen elsewhere. The writing is very good throughout. I was never particularly confused by the narrative and never lost my place regarding who was who and where they fitted it to things. Characterisation was, again throughout, very good and I liked a few of the characters quite a bit – especially Mary’s sister Mallory. BUT... By far the biggest problem I had with this annoyingly frustrating novel was the pacing. It was GLACIAL. Although filled with characters and day-to-day life situations, there was never any real sense of things moving forward or even, for the most part, moving at all. The murder of Renard in the opening pages was barely investigated and, if it had been removed from the story, made precious little difference to the overall tone of the book. It was almost as if the author started with the idea of an historical crime novel and then either changed her mind or simple lost herself in the rest of the story. The murderer was pretty obvious almost from the off but is only accused of the crime privately and then nothing is done about it. Likewise, after Renard’s death, the widow’s affairs are, under the terms of his Will, left in the hands of its executors (all but one we never see) whilst they decide on a suitable husband for her. Along comes an ex-love (her almost husband from years previously) and, eventually, they marry in secret and there are NO consequences! Plus – marry in ‘secret’ in a CHURCH where they have to read the ‘bans’ on three consecutive Sundays with none of the executors hearing about it? So, overall and despite the fact that it was genuinely well-written I struggled mightily with this book and, maybe at another time, would have DNF’d it. Unfortunately, not recommended. 

[Side Note: At last, I move deeper in history beyond the 19th century if barely! More from the 18th century to come...!]