The impression I got from this book was night, fog, flickering gaslamps and shadows. Which seems odd, since almost all the novel takes place indoors, and largely during the daytime. You get the feeling that you're never seeing what is real and true--it's like seeing damp footprints that are drying out, still-warm cups of tea in an empty room, and footsteps and shadows of people. It's a dark, convoluted, and strangely effective work.

This is London in 1893: the upstairs-downstairs dichotomy of the well-off and their servants. This dichotomy has been done well before: Upstairs Downstairs [of course], Gosford Park, The Shooting Party, etc. But here there are also a series of occurrences that almost lend a Kafkaesque sense of surrealism. There's a not-quite burglary, some odd patterns around Robert Bentley, ghosts from the past for Bentley's wife Mina, a dying Mrs Bentley, and a woman claiming to be the widow of Henry Bentley--and these are just the upstairs goings-on. The downstairs staff is not your grateful loyal crew: there's eavesdropping, steaming open mail, and stranger stuff. It almost seems, well, cluttered. You know things are happening, but it's almost impossible to make sense of them. But it works, and that's the bottom line after all.

Jane Wilbred, the new maid at the Bentley house is not Rosa Lewis (The Duchess of Jermyn Street was 10 years older than Jane in 1893), but there is some of the same quickness of mind. Life for the downstairs staff was hard, with not a lot to look forward to. Bentley is not very well off: he must contemplate the ungentlemanly task of actually having to earn a living. There's an instability, a world in transition from the Victorian heyday to less delineation of the rigid class lines. The ending of the book--in 1901--is strange and rather unsettling. But for this novel, that's entirely in keeping with the rest of the book. Well-done and effective!

Gerri Brightwell's "The Dark Lantern" opens in London in 1893. Sixteen-year-old Jane Wilbred, an orphan whose mother was hanged after being convicted of murder, has forged a letter in order to obtain a position as second housemaid for the Bentley family. She left her job working for a heartless and domineering mistress and traveled for five hours by train, hoping that her new situation will be a step up for her. Little does this naïve creature realize that she is a fly about to be caught in a spider's intricate web. Jane will soon settle into an arduous and backbreaking routine. She will be exhausted from her daily grind of hard labor followed by a few hours of rest in a freezing room. She will have almost no time to herself and her hands will become red and raw from incessant scrubbing and cleaning.

The mistress of the Bentley household is an elderly woman who is lying on her deathbed. Her son, Robert, and his wife of four years, Mina, have left Paris to take care of matters during his mother's illness. Robert and Mina are almost penniless. They have been living on money that Mina inherited, but their funds are almost gone. Although he does not earn any income, Robert spends his time promoting anthropometry (the science of identifying criminals using body measurements), which he learned from the esteemed Monsieur Bertillon in France. Robert would like the English government to adopt this system, which he claims is superior to dactylography (fingerprinting) as a means of identification, but he has not yet convinced British officials that his method is both efficient and accurate.

"The Dark Lantern" is a multilayered story in which Brightwell exposes the lies, deceptions, hypocrisy, inequitable class system, and restrictive gender roles in nineteenth century British society. Almost everyone has something to hide; servants spy on their masters and vice versa. Those harboring secrets live in fear that they will be found out and they desperately resort to bribery and subterfuge to avoid exposure. In turn, those who are in a position to expose the guilty recognize an opportunity to engage in blackmail. With pitch-perfect dialogue and excellent descriptive writing, the author delves into each character's inner thoughts, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities, laying their psyches bare. She is particularly successful in her indictment of the enslavement of the "lower classes" by the ladies and gentlemen who underpay and overwork them. In addition, she makes clear that in the nineteenth century, women with few resources at their disposal were often forced into compromising positions.

The characters are beautifully delineated: The reader will identify with the unfortunate Jane, who quickly finds herself a lamb among wolves; Mina Bentley frantically tries to hide her shady past from her husband and fears that her vengeful enemies may be on her trail; Sarah is a cunning servant who quickly gains power over Jane and shamelessly takes advantage of her; Robert is madly in love with Mina but he is, in many ways, an impractical and clueless individual; Victoria Dawes claims to be the widow of Robert's brother, Henry, but could she be a con artist who wants to steal Henry's estate from Mina and Robert?; Teddy is a young man who appears to fancy Jane, but is he genuinely interested in her or does he have ulterior motives? Brightwell skillfully balances her large cast and intricate plot and she concludes her suspenseful novel with some fascinating (although not entirely realistic) twists and turns. "The Dark Lantern" is a gripping family saga, an enthralling and atmospheric mystery, and an absorbing look at the thorny relationships between masters and servants in Victorian England.

Jane Wilbred takes a new position as the second maid in a London household to escape the injustice of her service in the country for a family who knows of her past. But Jane may have made a poor choice in accepting a position at the Bentley household because it is full of unkind, even manipulative people who also have secrets.

The matriarch of the Bentley family is dying. Second son Robert, who is an enthusiast of the study of anthropometry (the science of identifying criminals by the measurements of certain parts of their bodies), and his wife Mina, have returned home from Paris. Also there is the first son's widow-he had married without informing the family-and then died in a shipwreck on his way home from India.

There's a butler who likes his drink more than his job; a cook; Mrs. Bentley's ladies maid; a first maid who searches through her employer's things or stands outside of doors to overhear what is going on; a simple scullery maid; and Jane. Everyone has secrets and is less than stellar representatives of the human race. Put them all together and you have an intriguing look at life in a Victorian England household filled with deception and mystery.

Jane is doing more than her share of the work, blackmailed by the first maid who figured out who Jane is, and pressured by the mistress of the house to spy on her fellow servants-or lose her position without a character reference. How can Jane survive in London where she knows no one and her position is becoming intolerable?

I was captivated from the first page of the story and held prisoner all the way to the end, trying to guess what would happen next, who was a good guy and who was a bad guy, and who would survive the obvious coming downfall of the household of a Victorian England family that is teaming with secrets and deception. It is fascinating to watch the plots and plans unravel around the people there. And through it all, poor hardworking, mistreated Jane is just trying to survive.

Armchair Interview says: Although it sounds like a miserable story, it is not. It is a wonderful set of interconnected mysteries that will leave you glad that you didn't have to serve as a servant in Victorian England!

In 1893 London, housemaid Jane Wilbred obtains a position with the Bentley family by forging a glowing letter of reference and concealing that she is the daughter of an infamous murderer. Jane's new home at thirty-two Cursitor Road is filled with plenty of shenanigans and intrigue since the matriarch is dying; however the newcomer plans to be a mouse hiding as much as possible underneath the stairs and even from her peers.

There is a harsh rivalry upstairs between the two sisters-in-laws. The older brother Henry's wife claims her spouse died in a drowning incident while en route to England after years in Bombay; no one knows this widow, a total stranger. The younger brother Robert's wife Mina Bentley plans to be the matriarch and objects to the outsider or returning to Paris where she and Robert lived for several years. Robert ignores the war between the sisters-in-law as his interest lies with gaining official police recognition of the science of body metrics, anthropometry. He tests his theory when the house is robbed by an intruder claiming to be him, but soon spins into something deadlier.

This is an excellent Victorian mystery as Jane steals the show with her astute observations honed by being a maid although she is very young. The story line is fast-paced once the robbery occurs and Robert begins his inquiry. Fans of historical mysteries will enjoy THE DARK LANTERN as this is a very bright well written thriller starring a strong cast especially Jane.

Harriet Klausner

When Jane Wilbred arrives at the Bentley home in 1893 London, her only wish is to escape the taint of her blood. Her mother hanged for a murderess, Jane's meager existence has been weighted with the woman's infamy. In this new position, the maid hopes to better herself, at least incrementally, in a society ruled by class and entitlement. Hardly acknowledged by the downstairs staff, Jane is overwhelmed, clumsy and unable to gauge her position in a household where the elderly mistress is in her waning days, felled by a stroke, and son Robert's wife, Mina, is unsuccessfully attempting to bridge the gap between upstairs and downstairs with no real authority. Robert Bentley leaves everything to his wife, consumed with making his fortune via a new technique for identifying criminals, anthropometry (using body measurements to record those with criminal records). While forward looking police departments determine the relative values of fingerprinting and anthropometry, all depends on Robert's success in selling his theory to the authorities.

Downstairs, Jane finds her position in the pecking order, scurrying from place to place in an endless series of chores, dropping exhausted into her chilly attic bed long after the others are asleep. There is no kindness here for such as Jane, only sly manipulation by other servants and an unending cycle of labor. She comes to the notice of Robert's wife, who promises to keep Jane's past from the others in exchange for her cooperation. Mina Bentley is unsettled, anxious, sensitive to the judgment of the downstairs staff, but burdened as well by secrets that have followed her from Paris, where she met and married Robert, taking up residence here in London. Whatever Mina's secrets, she confides in no one, keeping her own counsel and monitoring the days for any threat to the fragile house of cards she has constructed. When trouble eventually arrives- and it does- it comes from two directions.

Weaving downstairs anarchy and petty grievances with the deceptively calm routine of the upstairs residents, the author artfully arranges an eccentric group of characters in counterpoint to one another. There are no pretensions here: Robert must capture the city's imagination with his technique, Mina keep the wolves at bay at any cost; Jane learn to avoid the pitfalls that lie in wait for her at every turn, while servants cheat, gossip and take advantage of careless masters. The truth is found somewhere in between, Mina's growing fear of staying in London, two deaths that rock the household and the arrival of a widow to stake her claim. Behind the façade of gentility, all is unraveling, dreams dashed and the shame of a mother's past exposed. If only fate could smile on these women, Jane and Mina, neither wanting much but security in a Victorian society that narrowly defines ladies and servants. Luan Gaines/ 2008.