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The Vanished Child |
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 The Vanished Child bySarah Smith Random House (Arrow) 420 pages, 2000 ISBN 0099410796 Reviewed by our UK Editor Rachel A. Hyde Although the Baron Alexander von Reisden has no memory of his early years, he knows who he is - a wealthy but deeply unhappy young man who tries to lose himself in his chemical research to get over the death of his wife. Just before Christmas 1905, when he is on a station platform in Switzerland, a man he has never seen before calls him by a different name. This sets him on an extraordinary adventure that will take him to America. There, he will have to impersonate the missing heir to a fortune in order to convince the man in charge that he is not that person – a part of the plot that did not quite work for this reviewer. Eighteen years before, millionaire William Knight was murdered and his young grandson Richard disappeared. But is Alexander the missing heir or not? The Vanished Child is a story that Wilkie Collins would have enjoyed – at least in part. It has a good sense of period, the style of writing and even the way the book is printed are authentic. the plot is teasing enough although obscure in places. As with Collins, there is a feminist angle here also. The beautiful and partially sighted Perdita Halley wants to play the piano professionally. Yet her impending marriage to the boisterous and domineering Harry will turn her into a wife akin to a member of a sultan’s harem. An enjoyable book that didn’t require many literary arabesques found throughout. |
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