Deception's Daughter (Martha Beale Mysteries) [Hardcover]

Cordelia Frances Biddle (Author)

Book Description

Series: Martha Beale Mysteries | Publication Date: August 19, 2008

Critics raved about The Conjurer, the first in Cordelia Frances Biddle’s superb historical mystery series. Now Philadelphian heiress Martha Beale is back in a second thrilling installment laced with fast-paced intrigue and exquisite period detail.

When the daughter of one of Philadelphia’s finest families disappears, Martha Beale becomes the unwilling liaison between the girl’s aloof and aristocratic parents and Thomas Kelman, Martha’s secret beau, who is overseeing the investigation.

What appears to be a kidnapping, however, takes a darker turn, and complex clues implicate rich and poor alike. It is up to Martha and Kelman to unravel the diabolical plot--and the painful disparity of their social classes--as they struggle to unmask the killer.

As in The Conjurer, Cordelia Frances Biddle’s elegant and evocative prose brings to vibrant life mid-nineteenth-century Philadelphia. Deception’s Daughter is a stunning sequel from a multitalented crime writer.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School—Biddle transports readers back to 1842 with the authentic voice of Philadelphian heiress Martha Beale. A band of young boys is burglarizing the mansions of the city's elite. When Dora, the daughter of a wealthy and prominent family, disappears, Martha finds herself embroiled in the investigation. Suspects and theories abound, including a possible elopement, a ransom scheme, and murder. When Dora's fiancé is shot and her father is poisoned, the suspect list grows to include both poor and rich residents of the town. Well crafted, the plot moves along quickly without sacrificing the authentic details of life in Philadelphia during the period. While this book is the second in the series, the plot and characters are not dependent on familiarity with The Conjurer (Thomas Dunne, 2008). Mystery fans will enjoy the suspense and pacing, while fans of historical fiction will revel in the rich detail of the setting.A romantic subplot about Martha and the criminal investigator adds to the mounting tension as the mystery unfolds. Many teens will also be drawn in by the universal themes of social stratification, betrayal, and women's rights.—Lynn Rashid, Marriots Ridge High School, Marriotsville, MD
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From Booklist

This second historical mystery featuring iconoclastic heiress Martha Beale zeros in on her relationship with Constable Thomas Kelman. When she and her newly adopted children, Ella and Cai, return to Philadelphia after a summer in the country, Martha is thrust into the doings of upper-crust society in the nineteenth century, but her attention is never pulled completely away from the uncommunicative Kelman. When the eligible young Dora disappears from her family’s home, Thomas and Martha follow a trail of clues that takes them into the slums, where raggedy children watch a young mother push a baby basket into the river and drown herself and where, later, a body is found in a coal bin. A bewildering chain of coincidences follows, appearing to implicate a poorhouse father in the baby’s death. Meanwhile, an eyebrow-raising romance commences between no-nonsense Martha and her working-class swain. Martha is a winning sleuth in the tradition of Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs and Tasha Alexander’s Lady Emily Ashton. --Jen Baker

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books; First Edition edition (August 19, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312352476
• ISBN-13: 978-0312352479
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #718,008 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Cordelia Frances Biddle on her Famous Lineage, Love of Research, and the Origins of The Martha Beale Historical Series. For additional insights into Philadelphia's fascinating past, please visit www.CordeliaFrancesBiddle.com

My passion for the early Victorian era that serves as backdrop for the Martha Beale series began with research into my Biddle and Drexel ancestors. Financiers Nicholas Biddle and Francis Martin Drexel were powerful men who shaped the city - and nation's - growth and politics. The 1840s in Philadelphia were tumultuous years. A cultured and educated "elite" confronting grinding poverty, race riots, workers' rights riots and a legal system made obsolete by a rapidly expanding city. Fertile ground for a novelist - especially one with murder on her mind.

Having been raised in a household of strong women, I also needed to make sense of the role of women in the mid-nineteenth century. "Fainting couches" may have been popular articles of furniture, but the women I discovered as I began chronicling my fictional heroine were anything but shrinking violets. Read about Sarah Josepha Hale, the editor of Godey's Lady's Book, if you want an example of a powerful female. In my mind the doughty Sarah was worthy predecessor to Oprah.

As a descendent of the Biddle line historians refer to as "The Romantics" (as opposed to "The Solids"), I see ghosts abounding as I walk our twenty-first century streets. I invite you to journey with me back in time and become a friend of Martha Beale. And do write to me via my website. I love hearing from fans and promise a speedy reply.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Solid Historical Mystery Suffers From too Many Loose Ends, November 5, 2009

By 

Erimini (Lowell, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Deception's Daughter (Martha Beale Mysteries) (Hardcover)

First of all, I have to admit I stumbled across the second book of this series first and I have yet to read the first book.

And it is certainly readable and enjoyable when read out of order. Everything you need to know about the characters is mentioned when they are (re)introduced without getting hammered with the knowledge all at once, not an easy thing to do in a multiple book series.

The writing itself takes a bit of getting used to (since it is written in the third person present tense probably to enable the reader to get "inside the head" of different major characters.) But, it is well worth the effort since the author has a gift for evoking the period, and an eye for detail especially with the class diferences and the workings of the Philadelphia.

My major criticism with the book is that, although the major mystery (the disappearance of a young upper-class woman) is resolved, the book itself feels like there is no conclusion. Too many unrelated plotlines are mentioned and then dropped (presumably to be picked up in the next book.)

People are introduced, deeds hinted at, and then never really developed. They seem like they should be important, but they peter off into nothing and we're left with wondering why they were mentioned at all.

For instance, Martha (whom the series is named after, although she doesn't actually do much sleuthing herself) sees a young woman commit suicide early in the book (although she doesn't know later that's what the young woman has done.) The suicide mentioned numerous times, as is the fact that other people know who she is (though the authorities and the reader never find out.) The suicide is blond, like the missing girl. Do the keepers of the "poor house" (Blockley House) know who she is? Is it related to the missing girl? Or is the sole reason for the suicide's existence the introduction of the boy who reported her? In which case, why keep returning to her again and again without having something new to say about her?

Maybe if I had waited for book 3 to have been released, I would understand these seemingly extraneous elements and find them more acceptable. Perhaps, the first book is filled with similar dangling threads, I'll have to see.

So, while I enjoyed this book, I would recommend waiting to read it until the next one is available unless you don't mind that not everything in the book is related or resolved.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fans of Maisie Dobbs, take note, July 13, 2009

By 

Debra Hamel (North Haven, CT) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Deception's Daughter (Martha Beale Mysteries) (Hardcover)

Deception's Daughter is the second book in Cordelia Frances Biddle's series of Martha Beale mysteries. Martha is an heiress living in mid-19th century Philadelphia. Her enviable financial situation has made her more than usually free to determine her own fate with respect to marriage. She has her sights on Thomas Kelman, an investigator working in conjunction with Philadelphia's mayor, despite that he's an unsuitable match for her by society's standards. In this outing Martha and Thomas must contend with a series of problems in addition to their romantic fumblings and misunderstandings--most seriously, the disappearance of the daughter of one of Philadelphia's leading families. The book takes readers from the well-appointed drawing rooms of Philadelphia's finest to the sorry confines of an almshouse to the city's lowest dives, where some of the aristocratic suspects in the girl's disappearance are wont to go slumming.

This is the first historical fiction I've read from Cordelia Biddle, but I doubt it will be my last. (Biddle is also the co-author, with her husband, of a series of crossword mysteries published under the pseudonym Nero Blanc.) Deception's Daughter offers a solid mystery, rich period detail, good writing, and likable characters who protest against but are ultimately hemmed in by the starchy confines of their times. On the negative side, there are a couple of chapters in which the tone of the book shifts subtly, when the author is describing a trip taken by the fiancé of the girl who's gone missing, which I found mildly distracting. Also, there is one passage in which Martha appears to have a prophetic dream, though this seems out of keeping with the rest of the narrative and isn't explained.

While the main mystery of Deception's Daughter is solved at the book's end, Martha's romantic life and smaller family-related problems are left unsettled, awaiting the next book in Biddle's series. I'll be happy to pick up the story when number three is released. Fans of Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs series may find the Martha Beale books to their taste.

-- Debra Hamel

5.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyed it so much, I just got the third in the series!, March 13, 2010

By 

C. Dietrich - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Deception's Daughter (Martha Beale Mysteries) (Hardcover)

The second in Biddle's series packs an even stronger emotional punch than the first. With several plotlines and finely nuanced characterizations, she kept me guessing to the end, and her deft depiction of the romantic relationship between Martha and Thomas Kelman added to the tension. This novel has it all: young love, hideous secrets, fearlessness, daring and revenge. Biddle's a writer to watch.