THE FIG EATER

After her nonfiction fashion books, All that Glitters and A Stylish History (not reviewed), Shields debuts with a novel about

murder, superstition, and bourgeois sexual intrigue all set, somewhat self-consciously, in 1911 Vienna. When a well-off young woman named Dora is found strangled and brutalized in the Volksgarten, more mysteries than just that of her murder are set in motion: Why was human excrement placed nearby, what did it mean that the victim (as her stomach contents) had eaten figs shortly before her death, and—later—why was the body dug up, a thumb severed, stolen, and hidden? The police, of course, try assiduously to answer these and other questions by whatever means they can, including photography, a dangerous art thanks to the explosive powders it uses. While the official investigation goes on, led by the central but unnamed character known as "the Inspector," a parallel investigation also goes forward, this one secretly undertaken by the Inspector's wife—Ersz‚bet, of Hungarian background—and her young friend Wally, an Englishwoman working as a governess. The Inspector and the women discover much that's the same: a cross-entanglement, between Dora's family and that of the imperious Herr Zellenka, of affairs, sex, syphilis, and terrible physical scarring of women. Is there a key to it all that can explain Dora's murder? Ersz‚bet's eastern European background has made her familiar with superstition, spells, and the occult as these were known among the gypsies, and increasingly (tarot cards play a role) she leans toward the conviction of the killer's being a monster or "wolfman" (a csord sfarkus)—an idea proven "true" in the end. All this is set in its place and time with the most fastidious detail and remarkable authorial knowledge, though one feels often less swept up by intrigue than badgered by a relentless tour director ("You know, there's a legend about Emperor Franz Josef visiting the markt here . . . ").

Another time and place made real; a pleasure for some, excessive for others.