The Woman in White
Rating
The Pequod Review:
Published in 1860, The Woman in White was one of the earliest crime novels, and one that features what would become a trope common to the genre: an intelligent and conniving villain whose scheme is thwarted by an honest but simple good guy. In this book, the plot is the story of Sir Percival Glyde’s plan to steal his wife’s inheritance by faking her death; it falls to the wife’s unremarkable drawing instructor to carry out the detective work. Even though it is now over 150 years old, the book remains highly readable, with a fully plausible mystery plot, interesting characters and witty prose.