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Unnatural Fire |
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| Unnatural Fire by Fidelis Morgan Harper Collins 356 pages, 2000 ISBN 0002326957 Reviewed by our UK Editor Rachel A. Hyde London, 1699. The Countess Anastasia Ashby de la Zouche is in the Fleet. Now sixty years old and fallen on hard times, she was once the mistress to Charles II and was married until her husband absconded with her money and servant to the New World twenty years ago. But she is to be reunited with her beloved maid Alpiew. The pair decide to make some money by being private investigators and journalists for a scandal sheet. Their first case appears soon enough and sounds straightforward: find out what a woman’s adulterous husband is up to. But the case soon turns to murder and Ashby and Alpiew find themselves embroiled in a stew of alchemists, mysterious inscriptions, playhouses and more besides. This is that rara avis; a comedic historical whodunit that manages not to turn silly, lose its way or lack historical verisimilitude. Difficult to achieve convincingly, this book manages it all with style, dash and vigor. The characters are lively and well drawn, the situations larger-than-life. But tranger things have happened and the settings have a stamp of authenticity; the mist-shrouded Thames with its swearing boatmen, the ripe odors and rumbustiousness of the Fleet Prison, bawdyhouses and the theater, and a country teetering on the edge of the early modern age where the alchemy of the mediaeval wizard becomes the science of Newton. Morgan manages to sketch it all skilfully, conjuring up a believable background for her lively characters in a period of history sadly neglected by novelists. A hugely enjoyable read. Miss it at your peril. |
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