The Beetle: a Mystery
Richard Marsh
1897
4/5 stars
The plot of this Victorian horror-sensational-thriller, which was wildly popular in it's time, is difficult to explain without spoilers. It (obviously) is about a beetle of a shocking, dreadful kind. This beetle is seeking revenge on a young Member of Parliament, Paul Lessingham, and doesn't hesitate to crush any life that stands in it's way. Lessingham, his acquaintance Sydney Atherton, and a private detective Augustus Champnell, frantically try to stop this creature from destroying Lessingham's fiancé, Marjorie Lindon, and Robert Holt, a clerk who was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The story is told in four sections, from the points-of-view of Holt, Atherton, Miss Lindon, and Champnell. It begins with a level of creepy suspense that hints at an intensity like that of it's contemporary, Dracula. It doesn't maintain this, though, which was a disappointment. However, the writing is excellent, the pace perfect, and the plot itself gripping -- combining into a novel that is enjoyable enough that the lightening of the story didn't matter in the end. I would certainly recommend this to fellow lovers of the genre.
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