Author: HUME, Fergus.
Title: The Rainbow Feather.
Description: NY, Dillingham 1898. Octavo publisher's decorated cloth. A very good copy. There is a small triangular bump in the cloth on the front cover which puzzled me until I realised it was a patch applied to the inside of the cloth before binding - they weren't going to waste a foot of cloth because of a small flaw in the material. ¶ First American edition contemporaneous with the London edition. An incredibly convoluted, even for Hume, murder mystery which begins with a cackling gipsy foretelling murder for a gorgeous but unpleasant young woman and misery for her equally gorgeous and unpleasant suitor. There is of course a twist. "And the remarkable result is that out of the thirteen active personages in 'The Rainbow Feather' ten are proved to have been present at the murder. It is pressing the credulous reader rather far, this transforming a quiet scene of assassination into a large social function." (Munsey's Magazine).

Keywords: literature fiction thrillers mystery detective c19th England