The Problem of the Surly Servant

It is May 1886 and all is not well at Christ Church, Oxford. The curator of Christ Church, the Reverend Mr. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (better known as the author Lewis Carroll), is expecting a visit from Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle - an acquaintance and would-be writer - and his wife when he learns of a series of troubling events. The wine cellar seems to have mysteriously become depleted, while some of the students and faculty have begun complaining that many small personal items - items of value - have begun disappearing from their rooms. Over at Lady Margaret Hall, one of the female students finds herself the subject of blackmail, with a photo taken of her as a child by Mr. Dodgson the object. And Lord Nevil Farlow, pressed by gambling debts and in financial difficulty, finds himself contemplating a desperate maneuver to come about. In the midst of all of this is Ingram, an insolent scout, whom Dodgson believes has been going through his things in his room and fires after a public disagreement witnessed by half the college. So that evening, when Dr. Dodgson discovers the murdered body of Ingram on the grounds, the only suspect for miles around is Dodgson himself. Now it is up to Doyle, with Dodgson's help, to find out how these various disturbances are related and uncover the truth about Ingram's murder before disgrace, or worse, lands at Dodgson's feet.

Friction between town and gown simmers at the center of Rogow's (The Problem of the Evil Editor) latest and entertaining literary-historical mystery. Young Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle, not yet famous for his Sherlock Holmes stories (it's the spring of 1886), and his wife, Touie, interrupt a trip to northern England to aid their friend, Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll), when the Christ Church don becomes the prime suspect in the murder of a surly, thieving, blackmailing Oxford University scout (servant). Confined to his college by Dean Liddell, the father of Alice and her sisters for whom the celebrated author wrote his classic children's books Dodgson must try to solve the crime indirectly, largely from police reports and Conan Doyle and Touie's own investigation. In clear, sometimes lyrical prose, the author paints an engaging and palpable picture of Victorian Oxford with its complex society of dons, undergraduates, scouts and townspeople. Rogow is particularly good at dramatizing the status of women as university students. This solid social background tends to overshadow the mystery solving, but the main pleasure, as always in this series, lies in the interaction between the two fascinating principals, whose images, divided by a cropped photo of a servant setting a tea tray on a table near an empty bed, appear on the singularly unattractive jacket. A period picture of Oxford would have been a better choice.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

The creators of Sherlock Holmes and Alice through the Looking Glass never met in real life, but that hasn't stopped Rogow from turning the elderly, prim, and brilliant Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) and the young, bumptious Conan Doyle into a sleuthing tandem. The latest in her utterly charming series makes rich use of Oxford's architecture, ambience, history, and culture. A scout's body, drowned in the river, is deposited on the college grounds by rowdy undergraduates, just as Conan Doyle and his clever and spirited wife, Touie, are visiting with Dodgson. The scout (Oxford employees who functioned as servants, valets, and waiters to the students) was a smarmy sort, given to pilfering and blackmail, including swiping one of Dodgson's artistic photographs of a young girl in the nude. That photograph, along with a vicious and scurrilous set of verses, is used to try to drive a young female undergraduate at Lady Margaret Hall out of the college. Rogow makes excellent use of some minor historical figures and of the struggle endured by Oxford's first women undergraduates in the late nineteenth century. GraceAnne DeCandido
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Charles Dodgson publicly argues with a man suspected of a series of thefts at Christ Church College in Oxford. When the man is then murdered, Dodgson stands suspect. He and Arthur Conan Doyle set out to prove otherwise. A solid addition to the literate historical series.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.