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Considering that Anna Katherine Green is regarded as a seminal figure in the mystery novel and called "The mother of the Mystery novel", I was expecting an interesting read. She was, after all, a best seller in her day and her female sleuth, Amelia Butterworth is regarded as a progenitor of later characters such as Miss Marple {and perhaps Amelia Peabody?}.
So I was very disappointed with Dr Izard. It certainly isn't a detective novel and perhaps this is the why it seems such a poor effort. What we have here is a clumsily plotted Victorian pulp melodrama with cardboard characters. The hero is completely one-dimensional and the Doctor is a wimpish pallid Byronic creation. One would expect a female novelist to create a reasonably believable heroine, but Polly is just a clinging-vine stereotype. Only the villain has anything close to an interesting personality--but the fact that he actually succeeds for so long is just simply not credible.
The cast of characters is so lifeless because Green spends a great deal of time talking about them rather than dramatising them--i.e. she tells rather than shows. Frequently she decides to use the characters to develop ethical points and we find ourselves on the receiving end of paragraphs of Victorian moralising.
Personally, because of her reputation as a seminal writer in the field of detective fiction, I would like to try another novel by Anna Katherine Green and I hope that her more well-known novels are more enjoyable.
Unfortunately, this work doesn't make me sanguine.
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