©1996, ProMotion, inc.
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The introduction of the Countess Zorah Rostova into Rathbone's chambers begins one of the most difficult and potentially damaging cases of Rathbone's career. The Countess has very publicly accused Princess Gisela of murdering Prince Friedrich. Friedrich, Gisela's husband and former heir to the throne of the tiny Germanic state of Felzburg, had abdicated some 12 years previously to marry Gisela. When, on holiday in England, he dies from injuries sustained in a riding accident, Gisela is the perfect grieving widow. No one except for Rostova sees her otherwise.
As she does in her Charlotte and Thomas Pitt novels, Perry here examines the foibles and follies of the upper class. With clarity yet without ridicule she shows lords and ladies, barons and baronesses to be equally subject to human nature as those in less prominent circumstances.
Perry further cements her reputation as master of the Victorian period by the extraordinary tensions and almost surgical use of emotion to take the reader in whatever direction she wants. This may be a book read in one sitting; it is not a book read only once.
Bruce Southworth is a freelance writer in St. Paul, Minnesota.
©1996, ProMotion, inc.