| REVIEW 14 OF 17 |  |
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Barrister Simon Tolkien, JRR's grandson, has wisely set his first novel within his own field of expertise, ie, a criminal trial at the Old Bailey. The Stepmother thus takes place in middle England, rather tahn Middle Earth. His great strenths are structure and pace. The book is very simply about a trial for conspiricy to murder, with flashbacks, but it is so skilfully put together that the reader gets just the right amount of information at just the right time. Even though the outcome is not seriously in doubt, one eagerly keeps turning the pages.
Tolkien has looked outside the family for his literary forebears. Think Rebecca, The Moonstone and Wagner. The issue is whether 'Lady Greta', the rather common but dynamic second wife of cabinet minister Sir Peter Robinson, arranged for the murder of 'Lady Anne', the grand but migrane-prone first wife. The crime took place in The House of the Four Winds, a Jacobean house which was built with a priest's hole (essential to the plot) and which is romantically perched by the sea. Anne's memory is jealously guarded by a housekeeper who has devoted her life to 'my lady'.
Peter and Anne's son, Thomas, is a hero in the best tradition of the English novel in which the innocent child does battle against the world of malevolent grownups. Fear of the wicked stepmother is engrained in all of us, but Thomas has to overcome, in addition to Greta, his drunken, unloving and violent father. Thoams vanquishes them only after he seizes the magnificient but cursed saphire ring, which his ancestors stole from India/The Rhinemaidens and throws it into the sea.
Although the book is set in Blair's Britain, Tolkien eschews the 'cool' legal thriller which dumps all over the criminal justice system. He accepts the system, just as it is. The Stepmother is in fact steeped in the world of Witness for the Prosecution, down to the fat defence barrister who sails close to the wind in cross examination, but who, like the thin prosecutor and the fair judge, is basically decent. Readers who regret how England has changed since the War will appreciate the rivalry between the two Ladies Robinson. Anne tends the roses, thinks that people should stay in their place, and performs the ultimate maternal sacrifice of giving up her own life in order to save her son's (or so she assumed). Greta, whose youth indulgence in drugs has rendered her barren, is pushy and working class. She thinks she can rise in our society just because of her university degree and elocution lessons. She is eventually betrayed by her origins.
Truth triumphs, not because of anyone's forensic skill, or because of recent legilation which places the victim at the heart of the trial process, but because of and English youth - pure, upper class, and heir to a great house - who was determined to do right.
Tolkien has looked outside the family for his literary forebears. Think Rebecca, The Moonstone and Wagner. The issue is whether 'Lady Greta', the rather common but dynamic second wife of cabinet minister Sir Peter Robinson, arranged for the murder of 'Lady Anne', the grand but migrane-prone first wife. The crime took place in The House of the Four Winds, a Jacobean house which was built with a priest's hole (essential to the plot) and which is romantically perched by the sea. Anne's memory is jealously guarded by a housekeeper who has devoted her life to 'my lady'.
Peter and Anne's son, Thomas, is a hero in the best tradition of the English novel in which the innocent child does battle against the world of malevolent grownups. Fear of the wicked stepmother is engrained in all of us, but Thomas has to overcome, in addition to Greta, his drunken, unloving and violent father. Thoams vanquishes them only after he seizes the magnificient but cursed saphire ring, which his ancestors stole from India/The Rhinemaidens and throws it into the sea.
Although the book is set in Blair's Britain, Tolkien eschews the 'cool' legal thriller which dumps all over the criminal justice system. He accepts the system, just as it is. The Stepmother is in fact steeped in the world of Witness for the Prosecution, down to the fat defence barrister who sails close to the wind in cross examination, but who, like the thin prosecutor and the fair judge, is basically decent. Readers who regret how England has changed since the War will appreciate the rivalry between the two Ladies Robinson. Anne tends the roses, thinks that people should stay in their place, and performs the ultimate maternal sacrifice of giving up her own life in order to save her son's (or so she assumed). Greta, whose youth indulgence in drugs has rendered her barren, is pushy and working class. She thinks she can rise in our society just because of her university degree and elocution lessons. She is eventually betrayed by her origins.
Truth triumphs, not because of anyone's forensic skill, or because of recent legilation which places the victim at the heart of the trial process, but because of and English youth - pure, upper class, and heir to a great house - who was determined to do right.