Mrs Osmond John Banville

Mrs Osmond is a sequel to Henry James' Portrait of a Lady. Portrait was written in the late 1800s with a cliff hanger to the fate of the female protagonist, Isabel.

Banville takes off from there, adopting the voice of James.

The pace is languid, if one can even recall one. Right towards the end of the story, the reader is still clueless as to what Isabel's plot towards her cheating ex-husband, Gilbert Osmond, is.

Isabel Archer, heiress to her cousin's fortune, is American. Her life in Europe spans from Italy where married life is based, to London where her dying cousin bids her. In between are her encounter with friends in London and high society contacts in Paris that has scant bearing to the direction of the plot.

Despite the different locations where the story moves, the pace is glacial. 

The reader enters Isabel's world in the first half of the story to see her world where she battles against vultures as a rich heiress.

In the second half,  the anti-hero's told his story and his circumstances. Gilbert, held hostage with the knowledge that his illegitimate daughter Pansy is to be presented as the child of his dead wife instead of Merle, tries to marry Pansy off to any titled man in England , including Isabel's spurned admirer, so as to shore up his dwindling fortunes. Pansy, has a secret herself and makes her unsuitable to any arranged marriage.

Back in Rome after the explosive meeting with her soon to be ex-husband and Merle, Isabel stumbled on the secret behind the death of Osmond's late wife. Apparently to account for the appearance of his illegitimate baby, Pansy, Osmond brought the sickly woman to Alba , an area stricken with typhoid, hoping for her convenient demise. Osmond presented the motherless child to the world when the first Mrs Osmond died, seamlessly placing Merle as a help to raise up the child.

In the end, Isabel threw a wedge between the relationship between the adulterous pair with a large fortune to Merle. Merle, newly rich, spurned lover Osmond. It was a sweet and expensive revenge.

Back in London newly divorced, Isabel tends to her elderly friend,Janeway. A friendship grew as Mr Devenish thanked Isabel for giving money to his socialist cause in England. This money, first mentioned in the start of the story, was the money that was misplaced in Janeway's house when Isabel left for  Rome.

Suited for those who enjoy literary flair with no hopes of a plot in the story.