... incongruously cozy ... That latter, sweeping conclusion, is the novel’s real message, and it is one that is as resonant in the wildness of Smiley’s 1850s Wild West as it is in today’s United States, where women’s health and character can come under attack from not only maladjusted misogynists, but also politicians, police officers, judges, justices, and the press ... For a story centered around sex work, the novel is remarkably wholesome ... Jean’s continual claims about seeing ghosts grow tedious, and contemporary social issues sometimes feel shoehorned into the narrative, but Smiley has written two dozen novels for adults and young adults, and clearly knows her way around a story. A Dangerous Business brims with delightful little touches ... Smiley’s ability to deliver salient social commentary wrapped in such an inviting murder mystery shows that just because the game’s afoot, doesn’t mean you need to bludgeon your readers with criminal minds, blood, and guts.
Now here’s something you don’t come across every day: a mash-up of a Western, a serial-killer mystery and a feminist-inflected tale of life in a bordello. But Jane Smiley’s A Dangerous Business is all that — and, amazingly, it works ... Smiley smoothly melds three distinct narratives into one without breaking a sweat.
This is a deftly constructed historical novel, but it’s also a murder mystery — and in that respect, the results are mixed ... Smiley has created several engaging characters. She vividly recalls the political uproar of the 1850s ... But suspense in this story is like a simmering kettle that never quite boils. There are walks, conversations and discoveries; the sense of threat, however, is muted ... If A Dangerous Business falters as a crime novel, it fares better as historical fiction ... A Dangerous Business achieves the goal of all worthy historical novels: opening a window to the past, forcing comparisons to the present, raising unsettling questions about how much has really changed.
[The] richness of detail, both historical and in the natural world, that elevates the novel above the likes of Nancy Drew ... The whodunnit aspect of the book lacks urgency, mainly because we know neither the victims nor the suspects well. The red herrings are unexciting and, well, the antics and plans of the two girls get repetitive; they spend an awful lot of time walking around old Monterey, planning to meet up later, and chasing silly leads ... By the end, the mystery is solved, a limp motive is revealed and we’ve gotten to spend 224 pages with two very likable characters, a beautiful, moody setting, and some compelling California history. The plot is almost beside the point.
... quirky ... Ms. Smiley is a Balzac of the wide open spaces; her canvases tend toward the broad and well-populated. Though more modest in scale and scope than some of Ms. Smiley’s previous books (sometimes a bit too modest), A Dangerous Business still has plenty on its mind. It is, among other things, an affecting account of a young woman coming into her own ... for all of its offbeat charms and its welcome message of female empowerment 19th-century style, A Dangerous Business, at just over 200 pages, feels both too short and too long. The small-town milieu and period setting limit Eliza’s activities. Thus there are many accounts of her daily constitutionals up or down Franklin Street, Jefferson Street and Pearl Street. And there are many accounts of her visits to a restaurant known to the citizenry as the Bear. The menu doesn’t seem to change much, or perhaps Eliza is just partial to hotcakes ... A side plot about ghosts goes nowhere, and while the murder strand of the story starts off intriguingly and the tension builds as Eliza and Jean consider and eliminate suspects, its resolution feels rushed and unsatisfying—too much reader investment for too puny a payoff. Still, and this is no small thing, we have Eliza and Jean. Their pluck, their grit, most of all their ineffable belief in the power of books, make A Dangerous Business, matter.
... there is, in Smiley's telling of her story, a certain straightforwardness and simplicity that make it seem, even at the height of the drama of unmasking a murderer, decidedly safe ... It's light, as I said, for all the weightiness of its subject — but entertaining, nonetheless. And even so, Eliza reflects, 'life had turned out to be more complex than even she, in her business, had expected.;
Jane Smiley paints such vivid imagery with her language that it’s easy for her novels to conjure memories of various movies and television ... But the book remains Smiley through and through, with clarity, deceptive wit and moral compass working at the service of a larger idea ... Among Smiley’s many gifts is an eye for the cycles of the natural world, and how the cycles affect her characters.
A strangely jaunty murder mystery ... Despite the grim subject matter, it never feels heavy ... A rose-tinted depiction of prostitution ... Smiley is a masterful writer ... Occasionally it feels rushed.
At 208 pages, the novel’s pace is quick. It feels like Smiley could mine more stories out of Monterey in 1854. Enough interesting characters enter and exit Eliza’s brothel bedroom to justify a series of novels. If anything like A Dangerous Business, they’d be fine stories indeed.
Surprisingly buoyant ... [Smiley] sets herself challenges that go well beyond plot. One of these challenges, the ability to capture a sense of place, is superbly answered. The mud-splashed streets of Monterey...are brought thrillingly to life ... But A Dangerous Business sets out to be many things: not least, a revisionist historical Western that peeks into the unruly lives of women, and a literary tribute to Poe, who pioneered the detective story. Yet while Smiley approaches these challenges with zest, the pacing seems too brisk in parts. Somewhat inevitably, the historical novel wins out at the expense of the detective story ... It’s easy to feel curiosity about both main characters as they don the mantle of female sleuths in a gritty, masculine world, but it is only towards the end that Smiley succeeds in drawing the reader’s empathy as well ... The resolution is neat but almost offhand, a digression. Perhaps the real triumph of this novel is its contribution to the growing canon of Westerns that showcase women protagonists and their struggle to find scraps of independence ... If you’ve followed this pair of sleuths this far, you will also be curious about their future, and eager to see how she and Jean would fare if they were to continue their career as women detectives. Certainly, the return of Eliza in another, perhaps more taut, mystery would be welcome.
Because Smiley’s detective novel premise is set in the mid-nineteenth century, she indulges in language that is illustrative of the time in a way that makes the story more tangible ... There are dynamics that exist within Smiley’s story that give it relevance today, despite its historical setting ... Overcoming a strict upbringing, becoming financially independent, and working together to save the lives of the women in their town from a serial killer illustrates the power of these women who were told, and believed, they were less than, only to shake off the stereotypes and build themselves anew.
A Dangerous Business is startlingly flat and unsatisfying. It is a mystery with no mystery, a book in which the characters develop not a whit ... It would be hard to spoil the plot of this predictable novel, but the person most likely to be the murderer turns out to be the murderer; apart from the poor slaughtered whores, everyone lives happily ever after ... The situation here offers plenty of opportunity for danger, yet there’s very little sense of risk ... Anything can be made believable in fiction, of course; but it is as if Smiley simply can’t be bothered to really look at what’s going on before her very eyes ... Worst of all, at the end of the novel Eliza is the same frank innocent she was at the start; she hasn’t learned anything and – more’s the pity – neither have we.
Deftly blending a clever murder mystery with historical strands, Jane Smiley in A Dangerous Business offers an entrancing view of California life in the 1850s Gold Rush days ... Smiley crafts a neat tale of investigation and self-discovery, while managing to maintain a portrait of prostitution as a surprisingly kind necessity of the time. Eliza is methodical and insightful, and the support around her protects her from serious harm, even from threat for the most part. As in the classic Western novels, this gentling of 'a dangerous business' makes the book easy to relax with—but may not be as accurate as one could hope ... relaxing reading, and there’s a lot of entertainment in seeing Eliza apply the methods of a fictional detective to the hazards of her dangerous life. Well-researched and smoothly told, the book is fine entertainment and offers a fresh perspective of women’s ways of surviving the frontier.
Pushes forward in a straightforward narrative rhythm that’s as pared down and reductive as the standard commonplaces of her heroine’s religious upbringing ... The tale winds along slowly as the women untangle the threads and ultimately find themselves in a big-bang, violent conclusion. But the pair’s progress to a solution, while not exactly plodding, lacks pacing and suspense. What’s more, all the promising relationship elements fade away toward the end, and the characters don’t seem to care ... All in all, this tale, though well written, flops around too much, never getting going and never settling into satisfying closure. It’s disappointing.
... entertaining, light ... Jean, Eliza's sidekick, is a less fleshed-out character; she works in an establishment that caters to women — most of whom are sorely in need of some affection. The existence of such a brothel in 19th century Monterey strains credulity but, as with other historically questionable details in this novel, it doesn't impair its enjoyment ... Smiley's likeable protagonists appreciate the relative independence and financial security of their work. Again, somewhat dubiously, they are not just tolerant of but sympathetic to their clients' loneliness and physical needs, which leads to a surprisingly benign view of working in a brothel ... Smiley keeps it light by not playing up the psychological aspects of her story, and her sensible duo don't seem terribly shaken by any of it. The result is a sort of perfumed Poe-pourri.
Smiley’s evocative sense of place and nuanced exploration of women’s roles in nineteenth-century American life nicely complement the portrait of Eliza and her determined effort to forge her own path. Eliza and Jean’s Poe-influenced crusade to restore importance to disappeared women makes a deliciously ironic story-driver.
Remarkable ... The vivid historical details and vibrant characters bring Smiley’s setting to glorious life. This seductive entertainment is not to be missed.
