The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

August 1, 2019
The monstrous ladies of the Athena Club have one last adventure in the final installment of Goss' (European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman, 2018, etc.) trilogy. Mary Jekyll and the rest of the Athena Club, made up of women who've been experimented on by famed literary men like Drs. Jekyll, Frankenstein, and Moreau, have returned home from their European escapades. Ready for a break from adventuring, Mary is horrified to discover that both the kitchen maid, Alice, and Mary's friend (and perhaps more than friend) Sherlock Holmes have gone missing. The club goes to Sherlock's office in Baker Street to look for clues while alternating chapters from Alice's point of view reveal her upsetting predicament. As it turns out, the woman keeping her captive is actually her mother, who is a member of a sinister organization called the Order of the Golden Dawn. The two of them share the mesmerizing powers of the title, which they gained from, you guessed it, dangerous experiments performed by Alice's grandfather. They are able to manipulate what others see, including changing their own appearances, which will come in handy for the Golden Dawn's plan to take over England by kidnapping the queen and replacing her with Alice's mother in her mesmerizing disguise. As Alice tries to learn all she can about the group's schemes, her friends work just as hard to rescue her. But will they make it in time to save the queen as well? The first two books' problems are still present here, with too much exposition and largely pointless commentary from the characters themselves. But the tone is lighter and the prose shows marked improvement, making those issues far less noticeable. The villains are more compelling, the plot twists land well, and the literary-character mashups don't feel so forced. An uneven series ends on a high note.

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August 19, 2019
Goss wraps up her gaslamp fantasy adventure trilogy with a novel more political than personal. Mary Jekyll and her found family of the Athena Club return from their Continental deeds of derring-do, fatigued and anxious. Three of their circle who were left behind in London—Alice the housemaid, Dr. Watson, and Mr. Holmes—have gone missing, as have less-loved figures such as the reformatory director, Mrs. Raymond. Like Mary, the pace at the book’s outset is a bit sluggish and confused. A quarter of the book passes before it becomes clear that Alice and the others have been kidnapped as part of a nefarious plot that reaches the highest political strata of the British Empire. The “monstrous gentlewomen” of the Athena Club must rescue them and foil the scheme. Goss’s themes have moved well beyond the women’s deeply personal struggles with the patriarchy depicted in the first volume. By the time Professor Moriarty opines, “We must regulate our borders so that we no longer accept immigrants and refugees,” it’s apparent that the storytelling has shifted decisively away from character-driven exploration of identity. The characters remain delightful but develop relatively little. Topicality and tenacity, in the person of the self-effacing but determined Alice, bring the series satisfyingly home. Fans of the first two novels will find this one a solid capstone. Agent: Barry Gottlieb, Barry Gottlieb Literary.