The Hoydens and Mr. Dickens: The Strange Affair of the Feminist Phantom: A Secret Victorian Journal

Victorian writers Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens join forces to solve the murder of a feminist in their third well-crafted adventure. Collins, who narrates, accompanies Dickens to Angela Burdett-Coutts's Home for Fallen Women in the country to retrieve 16-year-old actress Ellen Ternan, acquitted of murder in The Highwayman and Mr. Dickens and with whom Dickens is besotted. They learn that Burdett-Coutts, the owner of one of England's largest banks, has been threatened by an anonymous note. Back in London, they turn the note over to Inspector Field ""of the Protectives"" but worry more about the Women's Emancipation Society meetings attended by Ternan and the young former prostitute who is now Collins's inamorata. When a young feminist is found fatally strangled at the scene of a robbery at Coutts Bank, Ternan, whose scarf was the murder weapon, is arrested. Aghast, Wilkie and Dickens interview other Emancipation Society members to find the truth. Such eminent Victorians as Florence Nightingale and Dante Gabriel Rossetti make appearances in this highly footnoted caper in which the historical setting and mores get more attention than plot. Palmer exposes the era's sexual double standards through Collins's defense of his and Dickens's illicit love affairs and through his depictions of the lesbian performances put on for upper-crust patrons. (Feb.)