[Hilda Johansson 04] • Silence is golden

Once upon a time isn't all it is cracked up to be. Hilda Johansson, the sleuth in Jeanne M. Dams's turn-of-the-century novels, is the perfect observer and commentator; as a maid in the Studebaker household in South Bend, Indiana, Hilda sees what's going on among the rich, suffers what's going on among the less fortunate....and presents it all with an eye as keen as that of Jacob Riis.Hilda's situation hasn't improved much, even though she's solved several murders: with her entire family of seven living in a small house, the happiness she expected to find when they were reunited is sorely lacking -- particularly since her mother doesn't approve of Hilda's relationship with Irish Catholic Patrick Cavanaugh. Worse, her twelve-year-old brother Eric hates city life; he has been fired from a number of jobs and is increasingly restless under his overly protective mother's thumb. Then Eric's friend, who had run away to join the circus, is found beaten...and perhaps worse. The news is shocking; frightening is the idea that Eric might know more than he's saying.

Hilda Johansson has always been a mirror held up to her society and, by extension, to our own. In writing of her, Jeanne M. Dams continues to explore motives as relevant today as in the period she describes with such attention to detail, to period color, and to the human heart.