The Eustace Diamonds

Lizzie Eustace is young, beautiful, and widowed. Her determination to hold on to a fabulous necklace in the face of legal harassment by her brother-in-law's solicitor entangles her in a series of crimes - apparent and real - and contrived love-affairs. Her cousin, Frank Greystock, loyally assists her, much to the distress of his fiancee, Lucy Morris. A pompous Under-Secretary, a neurotic American society belle, a brutal knight, and a shady Scottish radical peer are only some of Trollope's engaging and revealing characters in this melange of detective story, political novel, and ironic romance. The Eustace Diamonds (1873) is the third in the Palliser series. Though often considered the least political of the six, it is a highly revealing study of Victoran Britain, its colonial activities in Ireland, India, and Australia, and its veneration of wealth.