Sunday Salon: A couple of mysteries

I've read two books this week and both of them could be described as mysteries, though of a very different kind. The first was Clare Boylan's Emma Brown, which I accepted as a swap on Read It Swap It out of curiosity. And it is itself a bit of a curiosity, being a continuation of a novel that Charlotte Bronte began, but of which she only wrote the first two chapters. Now though I do like the Brontes, I am neither a huge fan nor any kind of an expert, so I didn't know this unfinished work existed, nor, of course, that Clare Boylan had taken it upon herself to complete it. I'm not at all surprised that she wanted to do this, as the two Bronte chapters are extraordinarily enticing. Set in a rather pretentious though not terribly successful school for young ladies, they tell of the arrival at the school of a well-dressed gentleman and his daughter, a young girl of about thirteen. Enrolling her as a new pupil, he departs. At the end of the first term, when the schoolmistresses, the Misses Wilcox, write to him to ask him to pick up his daughter for the Christmas holidays, the letter is returned -- the address he has given is false, as is the name. That's it. So of course we are all dying to know who this gentleman was, and who this child can possibly be, and why on earth this situation has arisen. I believe there is no indication at all of how Bronte would have continued with the novel, so Clare Boylan has really gone to town in a big way. Taking into account Bronte's interest in the plight of the poor and dispossessed in London, she puts poor little Emma through enough dreadful experiences in the city to fill half a dozen lifetimes, and all before she reaches the age of fifteen. The final explanation of the mystery of her parentage (unknown even to her as she has lost her memory) and the reasons for her abandonment at the school is just about convincing, though it does rely rather heavily on a series of coincidences. As far as the style is concerned, Boylan doesn't really write like Bronte, though she has woven some extracts from Bronte's own writings into the text here and there. So don't read it if you will be unhappy that it isn't Bronte, but do read it if you like a fast moving and well-researched slice of Victorian London at its seamiest. Sadly, Bronte might have finished it herself, but when she read these chapters to her husband her was so discouraging that she abandoned it.
The second mystery was one I picked up in the house I was staying in for a few days earlier this week. I'd never heard of Marianne Wesson, but as she was described on the cover as being better than Patricia Cornwell I thought I'd give her a whirl. Really glad I did. This is an excellent legal thriller, Wesson's second (and she has since written a third). All three novels -- set in Boulder, Colorado -- concern the lawyer Cinda Hayes. In this one, Cinda is asked to take part in a radio phone in, one in which listeners can ask legal questions. One of the callers is a young girl who hints at some kind of familial abuse but also that she has only a vague memory of the events. Intrigued, Cinda meets and befriends young Mariah, who proves to have a serious eating disorder and to be a very troubled girl. She agrees to take on the case, but immediately finds herself in conflict with Mariah's father, a powerful academic who is running for state office. I found this to be a really enjoyable read, a real page turner. Wesson is a lawyer herself, so the detail is all very interesting and convincing, and I really liked the characters -- Cindy herself, of course, her tough-girl partner Tory and Tory's girl-friend Linda, Cindy's lover, the gorgeous lawyer Sam, who has moved to New York because he was sick of being the only black man in Boulder, the 'common-law' judge Pike Sayers, and more. I liked this one so much I've just ordered the first of Wesson's novels on Amazon (for 1p only, I hasten to say), so watch this space. It's nothing like Patricia Cornwell, by the way -- Grisham would be a better comparison.