The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher

I'm not sure that this is as "novel" a concept as all the promotion might lead one to believe, but it was still a good read. Kate Summerscale tells the story of what is now a classic mystery setup: a murdered family member inside the locked gates of an English estate, leaving only the occupants of the house as suspects. The case is investigated by Jack Whicher, a member of England's relatively new detective force, and he's left with the unpleasant choice of implicating a person that society does not believe to be capable of murder or allowing a murderer to escape unpunished.

As with so many fictional mysteries, the setup is promising, and doubt is cast on all members of the family while journalists of the day hint at unsavory elements of middle-class life concealed by wealth and privacy, such as sexuality and insanity. Sadly, most of us are so used to being bludgeoned by details of such behavior on a daily basis, so the innuendos and implications seem very understated in the modern era.

Still, in a world so accustomed to police presence, Summerscale reveals interesting details about how police, privacy and the sanctity of the home were viewed in 19th-century England. There are also interesting tidbits about rural village life and the day-to-day operation of a middle-class home. In addition, there are numerous connections drawn between the work of early mystery detectives (Wilkie Collins, Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) and the case as well as with the authors' depictions of detectives.

Overall, it was well-crafted and interesting reading, although the literary comparisons grow a little thick at times. Perhaps, Summerscale's work almost makes her own point about why we hunger for mysteries, because although the story unfolds, the murderer is brought to justice and the detective recovers his reputation, the story still remains murky. The identity of the killer is doubted, the victim and the motive remain grey shapes in the fog that are only just made out, and Jack Whicher wanders off the pages of history rather uneventfully. We love mysteries, because we love to have them solved; their solutions confirm our sense of order, their motives reduce unthinkable crimes to attitudes we can fathom, and at the end of the day, we know who the "bad" people are. Perhaps it isn't surprising that a real-life mystery with such unsatisfactory resolutions spawned a genre dedicated to defining, illuminating and resolving.