Rose: A Novel - Softcover

For Jonathon Blair, a mining engineer and explorer, the color and rigors of the Dark Continent are far more suitable than the foggy drizzle of his home in Wigan, Lancashire. When he returns from Africa's Gold Coast in 1872, he finds England utterly depressing and turns to drink to ease his melancholy. His patron, a Bishop and mine owner, agrees to send him back if he can clear up the mysterious disappearance of a local curate engaged to marry his daughter. As he sleuths around the cultured homes of Wigan, through ill-cobbled alleys and into the depths of the mines, he meets the alluring Rose Malyneaux. Used to relying on himself, Blair finds that Rose's instincts provide more answers than he could have hoped for.

If anyone is better than Martin Cruz Smith at creating a fictional world and making the reader a part of it, I don't know who that would be. This is such a stunning novel of mystery and betrayal that you don't even realize what a history and social studies lesson you're getting! Smith leaves modern Russia (Gorky Park, etc.) and plunges into the Victorian era, in the god-awful town of Wigan, England. It is the coal mining town from hell--with horrible, choking soot, Dickensian working conditions, and rebellious female coal sorters known as "pit girls"--so scandalous that they become famous enough to supply a big trade of photographic cards. They pin their long skirts up between their legs, giving the appearance of pants! The pit girls strike a blow for women's rights almost sixty years before they get the vote, and it is the feisty Rose of the title who causes most of the trouble. For Wigan is also the company town from hell, with a rich bishop controlling the mine and the people with a smooth veneer of piety covering all. And he doesn't like anyone challenging his authority.

It's a great read, a real page-turner. Smith did his research so well you'd think he lived in Wigan in 1872. From the bottom of the mine, up the shaft to the room in the bishop's mansion carved out of black coal, from the naive engineer Jonathan Blair to Bill Jaxon, king of the miners, from the haughty high society to the brutal miner's entertainment known as "purring," ROSE is a book you will never forget.

Doug Grad, editor