Book description
A young woman is found strangled in Mingo House, a morbid brownstone
museum in Boston's Back Bay. Strangely, she was dressed in Victorian
finery as if for high tea. Dubbed the “Victorian Girl” by the media, she
becomes the focus of publicity and speculation that reaches back to the
Mingoes' roots in England and to the builders of the mansion, a Civil
War arms dealer and his séance-holding wife. Boston comic Mark Winslow
and the other trustees of Mingo House are divided as to whether the
place is sustainable as a museum. Trustee chairman Rudy Schmitz, a brash
entrepreneur, seems convinced that the porous roof and escalating rain
damage will doom the place. Nadia Gulbenkian, the last of the old guard
trustees, is accusing Rudy of engineering the museum's demise.
Meanwhile, software executive Jon Kim and a dubious collector of saints'
bones and art are pursuing their own agendas. Mingo House itself seems
cursed. A number of people believe its walls conceal treasure, and are
will do anything to retrieve it. As the deaths and threats multiply, one
question resounds: which will survive this summer of deluge-Mingo House
or its terrified staff? Gay standup comedian Mark Winslow accepts a
serious role as a new trustee of Mingo House, a private museum in
Boston's Back Bay, in Anable's so-so follow-up to 2008's The Fisher Boy.
A few days after an enthusiastic docent, Shawmut College student
Genevieve Courson, gives Mark an in-depth tour of Mingo House, a time
capsule of upper-class Victorian life once owned by the unfortunate
Mingo family, Mark discovers Genevieve's body, elaborately dressed in
vintage clothing, at the house's dining room table. Mark's efforts to
learn more about the victim--in particular her promiscuous relationships
with fellow students, faculty members, and Mingo House personnel--lead
him into dangerous waters. Anable's eye for detail remains sharp
("A round mahogany table was covered by gilt-edged, raspberry
pink-china and bewildering silverware only a Victorian would comprehend,
odd little forks, threatening spoons..."), but the confusion many
of his characters exhibit about their sexual orientation does little to
advance the plot. Stephen Anable was born in Boston and graduated from
Stanford and Harvard universities. His first novel in this series, The
Fisher Boy, was published to acclaim in 2008. At various times during
his life, he has been a standup comic, a journalist, an actor, a social
worker, a scriptwriter, and the communications coordinator at a
cemetery. He has two sons and lives in Massachusetts.
