Authors back in the 1880s, like newspapers, were far more wordy than today. You may think Fergus Hume's writings are tedious but in each small scene, there can be a gem to find. Madam Midas is a mystery but it is not until towards the end that all the intrigue begin to come together. Finally they do.

3.5 stars

Madame Midas is the second novel by British lawyer and author, Fergusson Wright Hume, and was published in 1888. This Text Classics edition sports an evocative cover design and an introduction by Claire Wright. In her introduction, Wright explains that Hume’s tale is loosely based on a real-life female Australian mining speculator of the late 19th Century, Alice Cornwell.

Soon after the death of her widower father, Miss Curtis was married to Randolph Villiers. Before he departed this earth, her father has provided a large settlement of money which was to be hers alone. In a rather short time her husband, a profligate gambler and womaniser, had managed to lose all the money she had inherited upon her father’s death, and her settlement was all she had left on which to survive. But Mrs Villiers was a determined woman, and sank her remaining money into a gold mine managed by a canny Scot, one Archibald McIntosh, who was certain he would find the Devil’s Lead and make them both rich.

Hume’s quirky cast of characters includes, among many, a sceptical nurse, an escaped convict, a minister’s daughter, a doctor with an interest in poisons, a jealous mining agent with a garrulous parrot, a family of actors, and a mute. The plot is original, although readers accustomed to contemporary murder mysteries may find this one will be somewhat slow-moving and drawn out; the denouement is quite convoluted. An excellent example of a classic 19th Century mystery novel.