Customer Reviews

The Dead Letter and The Figure Eight

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I encountered the name of this author as an aside in the preface of another book. To think I might never have read her otherwise! Metta Fuller Victor is an utterly charming, highly accomplished writer and an important figure in the history of detective fiction. With these two books she gave America its first full-length detective novels.

In THE DEAD LETTER (1867), a young man handsome, rich and universally esteemed is stabbed in the back shortly before his wedding. There's a great tangle of tragic coincidences, dark passions and cunning machinations to probe before we learn the whole truth of the matter. Luckily the infinitely patient Mr. Burton takes on the investigation.

Burton is a wonderful gentleman-detective, sensitive to auras of good and evil, brilliant at analyzing handwriting and decoding messages, physically powerful and magnetic. His unofficial assistant in this case is the number-one suspect.

In THE FIGURE EIGHT (1869), a loveable, eccentric middle-aged doctor is poisoned in his library, having just returned home rich from the goldmines of California. His fortune in gold bullion disappears overnight, leaving his daughter and young wife penniless. Almost everyone assumes his scamp of a nephew, Joe Meredith, did it. Joe must solve the mystery or live in hiding all his life.

Among the many interesting characters, my favorite is the conniving governess, ever in danger of betraying terrible secrets when she sleepwalks.

In these novels, Victor draws elements from the gothic tale, the adventure story and domestic fiction to achieve emotionally gripping, psychologically complex mysteries. Her detective novels influenced Anna Katherine Green, who in turn influenced Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle. I heartily recommend this book to anyone interested in the evolution of detective fiction.