The Secret of the Lost Pearls is Darcie Wilde’s sixth mystery about Rosalind Thorne, a Regency gentlewoman fallen on hard times after her father abandoned his family. (But see my note at the end of the review for more about series numbering.) Rosalind undertakes discreet investigations for gentlewomen in distress, and her cases often involve solving murders. Readers familiar with the series will know there is a cast of regular characters who help Rosalind with her investigations: most importantly her best friend Alice, a gossip columnist who has become a novelist, Rosalind’s resourceful maid Amelia, and her love interest, the handsome Bow Street Runner Adam Harkness.
As the novel begins, in 1820, King George III has died and the Prince Regent has become King George IV. The London social season is about to begin. Rosalind and Alice have been arguing because Alice thinks the house they share is too small and she wants to move, but Rosalind wants to stay. Adam is called away to Manchester on a case, so, much to the disappointment of readers expecting a lot of romance, we don’t see much of him until the last part of the book. But later–not to give too much away–there is a scene that makes up for it.
A childhood friend of Rosalind’s, Bethany Douglas, asks for her assistance in finding a valuable pearl necklace that went missing from her dressing table after the king’s funeral. As a pretext for staying with her family, Bethany asks Rosalind to chaperone her husband’s younger sister Penelope through the London season. Complications arise from the start when Bethany’s mother, Mrs. Hodgeson, recognizes Rosalind and exposes her true purpose in the house. Rosalind decides to continue the investigation but realizes people will be on their guard around her.
Bethany’s family is a dysfunctional one, to say the least, with many complexities in their relationships. Her husband, Gerald Douglas, has recently been named heir to his grandfather’s fortune, but only if his grandfather is pleased with him. Needless to say, the old man is extremely hard to please. Three years earlier, Bethany’s youngest sister, Nora, eloped with a former friend of Douglas’, a scoundrel named Cantrell, who also goes by several other names. Nora has returned to the family and told them her husband has died, but it turns out he’s very much alive, and he might not even have married her. Cantrell shows up at an embarrassing moment and demands that his wife return to him. Nora refuses and tells everyone they were never married. As readers of Pride and Prejudice will know, an elopement without marriage causes ruin for the whole family, and Douglas, who wants to keep his inheritance, sends Nora away. She also becomes the prime suspect in the theft of the pearls, because she needs the money to support herself.
It turns out that Penelope, Douglas’ younger sister, had been in love with Cantrell before he eloped with Nora. On the surface, she seems the perfect young gentlewoman, but she causes a scene when she sees Cantrell at a musical evening, so everyone realizes the depths of her feelings. Another important character is Mariah, the middle Hodgeson sister, who is an intellectual with a strong interest in science. She insists that Rosalind chaperone her as well as Penelope through the season, even though she has never shown an interest in social activities before. Rosalind figures out that she wants to get away from her family, and that she and Nora have many secrets. But do they include the theft of the necklace?
Then there are the parents of the three sisters, Mr. and Mrs. Hodgeson, who prove to be quite an embarrassment to their son-in-law. Mr. Hodgeson is an alcoholic who neglects his daughters, spends most of his time in his library, and makes sarcastic remarks about his neighbors. If Mr. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice had been an alcoholic, he would be very much like Mr. Hodgeson. And Mrs. Hodgeson recalls Mrs. Bennet with her hysterics and fits of nerves. In fact, the Hodgesons are clearly modeled on the Bennets, and it is no coincidence that most of the chapters in The Secret of the Lost Pearls begin with quotations from Pride and Prejudice. Mariah, of course, reminds the reader of Mary, and Nora of Lydia, even though she’s more calculating than Lydia. Bethany does not especially remind me of Elizabeth, though, or any of the Bennet sisters except possibly Jane. She is devoted to her family and her children. Douglas reminds me somewhat of Mr. Darcy. He has something of Darcy’s aloofness, and his embarrassment at the behavior of the family of the woman he loves, but he is not as attractive as Darcy.
The complex plot takes many twists and turns, as the history of Douglas’ inheritance unfolds. His uncle, the first heir, was a bigamist with several different families, none of them knowing who was actually born in wedlock. The next heir, the uncle’s oldest son, has disappeared after a riding accident. Was it murder? Or is he actually still alive? Did he run off after his father’s bigamy was exposed? Meanwhile, Rosalind finds out that Nora’s elopement with Cantrell actually took place before Douglas was named his grandfather’s heir. So what was Cantrell’s motive, if not money?
As soon as he realized Douglas was going to inherit a fortune, Cantrell started blackmailing him from the Continent. After his return to England, he watches the house, and before long Rosalind discovers someone within the household is giving him information about the family. Her maid Amelia, who has been doing some investigating among the servants, finds out that a maid named Betsy is Cantrell’s associate, but then Betsy disappears, so Rosalind cannot find out what she was telling him.
The murder actually does not take place until more than halfway through the book, and it would be a spoiler to say who is murdered. Everyone has a motive, of course, and Rosalind is not sure if the thief and the murderer are the same person. There is also a subplot involving an art exhibition in London, of paintings by an artist who died tragically young. His unmarried sister is in charge of exhibiting his paintings, but she is notoriously hard to find. A society lady who helped Rosalind on a previous case wants Rosalind to introduce her to the artist’s sister as the price of her help in introducing Penelope and Mariah to society. At first it is not clear exactly how the artist’s story connects with the main plot, but you can be assured that it does, in an important and surprising way.
This is probably Rosalind’s most complex case yet, and I enjoyed the web of intrigue, and guessing who among the family is guilty. I did not guess the thief and the murderer until the very end, and I will not say whether or not they’re the same person. I kept going back and forth on that, and changing my mind on who it was, through the whole book. The conclusion is a satisfying one. Rosalind’s romance with Adam doesn’t advance as much as I thought it would, but Adam faces an uncertain future because his boss at Bow Street is dissatisfied with his actions in Manchester. It remains to be seen in a future book whether he and Rosalind will find happiness together. — Vicki Kondelik
Note: It seems that this book is being marketed, by Amazon and Barnes and Noble, as Book 1 in the Useful Woman Series, while the previous five volumes are Books 1-5 of the Rosalind Thorne Series. Readers should be aware that this is not Book 1. This is Book 6. I do not know why it is being marketed as if it were the first in a new series. I also noticed that the cover art is quite different from that of the previous volumes. This makes me wonder if the publisher is trying to find a new audience for the series. It’s a great series, and I hope it does find a wider audience. But readers should be aware that this is not the best place to start. The Secret of the Lost Pearls certainly does stand on its own, and the series does not necessarily have to be read in order. I admit I started in the middle. But to get the whole picture, with the history of the characters’ relationships, it is probably better to start at the beginning. The first book is A Useful Woman. (Even more confusing, since the “new” version of the series is being marketed as the Useful Woman Series.) The books are listed in reverse order at the beginning with, at least in the advance reading copy, an amusing typo in this book’s title: it is called The Secret of the Lost Pears. The whole series is a treat to Jane Austen and Regency fans, and I highly recommend it.
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Vicki Kondelik is a cataloger at the University of Michigan’s Graduate Library, and edits their book review blog, Lost in the Stacks. She writes book reviews for the Historical Novel Society, and is currently writing a historical novel. She has been an avid mystery reader for a long time.