The Moonstone, a yellow diamond looted from an Indian Temple and believed to bring bad luck to its owner, is bequeathed to Rachel Verinder on her eighteenth birthday. That very night the priceless stone is stolen again, and when Sergeant Cuff is brought into investigate the crime, he soon realizes that no one in Rachel's household is above suspicion. Hailed by T.S Elliot as 'the first, the longest, and best of the modern English detective novels', The Moonstone is a marvelously taut and intricate tale of mystery, in which facts and memory can prove treacherous and not everyone is as they first appear.
First published in serial form in 1868 this is outstanding. Like "The Woman in White", I could not put it down as you want to have the mystery solved.
The story is told in journal form by several of the characters in the book so you get different opinions on events. The author is honest and the reader is supplied with only the information that the investigators have throughout in solving the mystery.
In Sergeant Cuff we have an eccentric, know all investigator who would have to have been the predecessor of Sherlock Holmes plus this is full of marvelous writing.
The writing itself is doubly remarkable in that at the time of writing Collins had a excellent opium habit.
This is a 9/10.
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