The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

Read for: RIP IV and 1% Well Read Challenge

The Moonstone is a huge yellow diamond (valued at 30,000 pounds in 1848 – (I have no idea what that translates to in today’s money but 30,000 pounds today is a lot of money!)  with a history.   Originally set in the forehead of an Indian god who typifies the Moon, the diamond finds its way into the Herncastle family in England.  At the outset of the novel, the diamond has been left to a young lady named Rachel.  The diamond is to be given to her on her birthday.  In the days leading up to the birthday party, three Indians are observed in the vicinity of the house acting suspiciously.  Rachel is given the diamond on her birthday as planned and wears it prominently at the dinner party.  The three Indians show up at the party, claiming to have magic tricks to amuse the party.  After the guests have left, the house is carefully locked up (because of the presence of the diamond and the suspicious Indians) and everyone goes to bed.  The next morning, it is discovered that the diamond is missing.  So begins the search for the missing diamond.  Many people are involved and many people are suspected through out the course of the book.

I really enjoyed this story.  There’s lots of plot twists and turns and I never figured out who had stolen the diamond on my own.  It’s a perfect Victorian mystery!  The characters are believable and likeable and entertaining.  Like The Woman in White, the story is told from the point of view of several of the characters but unlike The Woman in White, I found the flow was so much better and the story was so much more entertaining.  I think my favourite narrator was Gabriel Betteredge, the house steward.  He had an obsession with Robinson Crusoe that was really funny.  The second narrator was Ms. Clack, and ultrareligious, self righteous, interferring woman who I also found to be quite entertaining to read about.  She put her foot in her mouth several times but of course never realized how offensive she’d been.

This was definitely better than The Woman in White, which I didn’t love.  The other thing I truly enjoyed about this book was the particular edition I borrowed from the library.  It was published in 1946 and was donated to the library sometime in the 70′s.  So the pages were soft and yellowed and smelled old, which made reading it that much more fun.  It also had some hilarious illustrations.