Guilty Knowledge

Rating:
Summary: Clever historical mystery
Review: In Edwardian England, sisters-in-law, Viscountess Eugenie Crowthorne and Lady Isabelle Delmaye share an intimate bond centering on murder and blackmail. For the past seven-plus years, at least since the honorable Isabelle became a widow at twenty, the two women have spent much of their time either hiding secrets, trying to trump one another, or simply blackmailing the other. The amoral Isabelle almost always triumphed in their battle.

However, a new murder interrupts the game of one up-woman-ship. The police investigate the death of a foreign visitor and soon begin to unravel a similar happening several years ago regarding an Italian doctor who knew the inner secrets of the two ladies. Did one of the women kill the foreigner just like they most likely murdered the Italian?

The who-done-it in GUILTY KNOWLEDGE is cleverly designed, but the tale is more an intricate look into two aristocratic women at the beginning of the twentieth century. Isabelle and Genie are fascinating charcaters whose motives and mannerisms are lucid so that the audience understands their actions and reactions. The support cast provides a feel for Edwardian England even as they cement the insight into the lead characters. Clare Curzon has written many superb novels (under several names) for over four decades has written one of her best books with this keen perceptive examination of a bygone era.

Rating:
Summary: full of bizzare transitions and plot inconsisticies
Review: This book more full of holes than my old fishnet stockings. Characters marry, get sick, committ murder, and act in inexplicable ways. They appear and disapper without entering or exiting the room. By the end I was frantically paging back and forward through the book trying to figure out where a character was injured, or married or did some of the things that are noted. I even checked page numbers wondering if somehow a few chapters had been omitted from my copy. AWFUL.