Against the Light

Set in April 1912, this socially illuminating standalone from Eccles (The Firebird’s Feather) focuses on Edmund Latimer, a wealthy MP and cabinet minister, and his physician wife, Alice. They have felt comfortable and protected in the large Regent’s Park home that they share with his sister, Violet; Violet’s husband, Ferdie; and the couple’s baby, Lucy; but they find themselves suddenly vulnerable. The touchy subject in Parliament is the Irish Home Rule question. Edmund is working long hours and showing the strain, while Alice is exposed to the Home Rule controversy through her work at the medical clinic. Activists and street gangs complicate an already tense situation that hits the family more personally with kidnapping, murder, and threats to their personal safety. Is it only the Irish situation causing the uncertainty and fear Alice feels? Or is it also her growing concern about her marriage and the family? Eccles’s usual strong sense of time and place, as well as the growing unease over political events, overshadow the less developed plot and characters. (Sept.)