The Pearl Thief

[from inner flap dust jacket] There is first of all a famous string of pearls that had been reset for a Countess; an uncle who is a diamond merchant and dealer in precious stones -- very old, annoyingly crabbed, most suspicious, whose god is money, and who has spent a lifetime trading in priceless jewels; then there is a very good-looking young man who is to inherit the uncle's fortune; and last there is Sheila Curtis, who spent her days in the dark and musty-smelling jeweler's shop -- her beauty eclipsed by the murkiness of her surroundings. Suddenly, dramatically, life was changed for these people. Calamity overtook them --- the famous pearls were stolen. And Sheila Curtis, who last saw them, was dismissed from the musty shop. The mystery only deepens when Sheila, daringly gowned in the latest and most striking creation of the greatest of all Paris coutouriers, meets the young man again at the Ice Carnival at a winter resort in Switzerland, the exclusive playground of the idle rich.

Berta Ruck has lost none of the charming style that captured her first large audience, and with book after book she has successfully held this elusive public.

The first thing to note about The Pearl Thief is its fabulous dust jacket by Ellen Bernard Thompson Pyle. Ellen, a Philadelphian, studied under Howard Pyle and married his youngest brother, Walter. When Walter died of Bright’s Disease in 1919, she took up her paints again to support their four children. Ellen B. T. Pyle is most famous for the 40 covers she did for The Saturday Evening Post but her novel dust jackets — often starring her daughter, Katie — are gorgeous examples from what’s often considered the Golden Age of American illustration art. Ellen’s (and Katie’s!) work appeared on ten American editions of Berta Ruck novels: The Dancing Star, The Leap Year Girl, The Clouded Pearl, Lucky in Love, The Pearl Thief, Kneel to the Prettiest, Her Pirate Partner, Mind of a Minx, Money for One and The Youngest Venus. (Of these, I have all but Kneel and Money — if you have a source for either, please, please set me up!) The Pearl Thief has especially lovely use of color and pattern and was featured as the cover image on the catalog of the 2009 Delaware Art Museum exhibition of her work.

The Pearl Thief is Berta Ruck’s only Hubin listed mystery, which is a little surprising, as it’s not really mystery-forward & leans way more romance. It’s also one of her longer books — my Dodd, Mead copy weighs in at a robust 356 pages. Did it need quite that word count? Probably not. Is it still a lot of fun? Absolutely.

Sheila’s alpine “Escapade of a lifetime” (174) hits a lot of the usual Berta notes. There are depictions of strong platonic friendships in both sexes — between Darol and the young French count (”From the first we were sympathetic; a woman who was more to me could never be the same as this friend.” 322) and Sheila and the fashion writer/illustrator Peg Woffington (”Some sisters are not born but made.” 139). There is a character, portrayed positively, who seems coded not straight — in this case the talented, successful, happily single Peg. There’s a fantasy of what women’s financial independence can be like: Peg’s apartment — “the pleasure of a woman’s flat designed for her taste and comfort alone” — and even “villainess” Inez Cottrell’s freedom to live as she pleases — “she had always done anything she wanted” (90) — and to treat sexual transactions with the business-like frankness usually enjoyed by men. Ruck also uses Inez’s character to return to one of her favorite themes: an explicit critique of the sexual double standard, here, she exhorts the reader to mark how directness and even aggressiveness are taken for granted in men’s romantic pursuits while being viewed as “against Nature” (265) when employed by a woman. There’s her repeated emphasis on women being misjudged based on their appearance — a “sombre-eyed exotic sylph” (192) at the lodge turns out to be, not actually a French model, but “Greek and a fully-qualified House Surgeon”. There are her usual interesting side characters — Peg, of course, “Mrs. Powers” — American, either widowed or divorced, kindly and vivacious, who gets herself an appreciative younger love interest — and the nondescript little Winkeley, whose ability to fade into the background is the ultimate career asset for "the keenest private detective" in London. As with so many of Ruck’s supporting casts, you end up ejoying these side characters as much or more than the leads, and find yourself plotting a spin-off for each. Add in fun descriptions of a Swiss winter resort town in full swing (or spin -- the ice theme) a mild (and slightly preposterous) mystery, and a sympathetic main couple (Darol, battling PTSD), all conveyed in her breathless-rapture style (”Never had she known such torrents of hot water from such silver taps!” (62))— and what you get in The Pearl Thief is another entry in Berta's long list of entertaining comfort-reads.

Flags: A handful of ethnic slurs, including the n-word, and the portrayal of Inez is marred by some unpleasant ethnic stereotyping — period English chauvinism, basically.