Melikan’s female based spy series uses actual events to enhance her novel.
HOLLYWOOD: “I had decided to make two of my American characters in The Mistaken Wife hail from New Jersey as a nod to a friend,” says The Mistaken Wife author Rose Melikan. “Only later did I discover that this was a particularly apt choice because New Jersey was the last northern state to abolish slavery. It was only after I had decided on the route of the chase from Paris to the coast that I discovered the existence of the Paris to Lille telegraph line, the only French line then in existence, which played an important role in how that part of the story played out.”
The Mistaken Wife is the third book in Melikan’s Mary Finch series. Spymaster Cuthbert Shy once again calls upon Mary Finch to help her country. She’s to go to France and befriend the U.S. envoys in Paris. He asks her to create “disagreement, confusion, and enmity” so the Americans won’t back the French in the war with Britain. France had helped the United States in its war with Britain and had a treaty to return the favor to come to the aid of France. Whether that treaty was still in force with the new French revolutionary government was in dispute. Would the United States side with France or former enemy Britain or remain neutral?
“For The Mistaken Wife I wanted to set both Mary and Robert Holland new challenges, and if possible to get them out of England, so it was quite a tall order,” says Melikan. “As with The Blackstone Key and The Counterfeit Guest, I started by looking for actual events that would provide the right setting. The so-called WXYZ Affair put me on the right track, because involving Mary in Franco-American negotiations would enable her to go to Paris…enemy territory for an Englishwoman at that time.”
Finch has to keep her mission secret from everyone, even her intended, Capt. Robert Holland, who coincidentally aslo goes to France to spy, to find out about a possible undersea weapon. The two cross paths and must work together if they’re to get home to England.
“I learned a lot about Paris from the letters and diaries of visitors in the late 1790s,” says Melikan. “Biographies of Robert Fulton helped me with my account of the Ammonite. I also believe in doing quite a lot of legwork, visiting the places where my characters go.”
The characters are well written. At times The Mistaken Wife seems slow because there are so many detailed descriptions. You’ll want to know more about Cuthbert Shy the master spy. Let’s hope Melikan does more with Shy and gives him his own series.
Melikan currently lives in Cambridge, England. She is a Fellow of St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge, where she teaches English legal history and Roman law. Melikan is currently working on a novel set in the reign of King John.
The Mistaken Wife: A Novel Rose Melikan. Paperback, 432 pages, Publisher: Touchstone; Original edition (September 14, 2010), Language: English ISBN: 9781416560906 $15.00
Rating: 3 Stars
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