Ah, this is a romp of a romance, a potboiler of a high order. It contains one of the best suicide scenes I've ever read. I'm pretty sure my jaw actually and literally dropped as I read the scene.

Alas, it is halfway throught the book, and there's some plotted business about a missing letter, and this sort of thing doesn't make great literature (though perhaps a fun movie, no?), but it does make for light reading, adventure reading. I highly recommend to those who know that they're not getting "War and Peace" or "Fathers and Sons" when they pick up the book. This is a romance. The characters are there, yes, but the incident, chiefly the incident of suicide, is the main dish. And it is unforgettable. ( )