This novel began promisingly with the story of Annie, a young girl from the slums of Victorian London, who stumbles upon a curio shop where the mysterious proprietor offers her the chance to purchase anything for one penny. Having memories of being told by her elder sister that their deceased father had spent time in India, she buys a sliver of ivory carved with an elephant. Shortly afterwards, tragedy occurs due to her sister's abusive husband. As a result, Annie is sent as a maidservant to a house in the country, an unusual property built in the Indian style by a man called Smolte who somehow made a fortune in India. The Smolte family are all dysfunctional in various ways, the elder son worst of all, and Annie soon finds herself caught up in the family's violence and perversion.

After about a third of the book, the story switches to the various viewpoints of the Smoltes and through flashbacks it is shown exactly what Smolte did in India, and the atrocities of which he was the prime cause. Although there are small sections from Annie's POV afterwards, it never recaptures the interest of the early part of the book. The writing style and descriptions are at times magnificent, but there is so much cruelty in the story, especially violence against women, that I could not enjoy it.

The book also suffers badly from the grinding gear change from Annie's story into that of the Smoltes, and I think would have worked better if their story had been interwoven with hers from the start so that it could have been foreshadowed that at some point the two would join up. As it is, it comes across as two disparate stories grafted together with the aid of a few hints about India in Annie's family background to make it somehow possible that her presence is the catalyst to bring a very rough justice to the Smoltes. From being a story about the deprivation of the Victorian working class, especially the girls and women, and the injustice to which they are subjected, it switches to a post-colonial guilt trip, brought about by supernatural means, that is not very convincing.

Another oddity is that the punishment dished out to various characters is often out of proportion to what they have done. For example, a peaceful end is reserved for the woman who has procured servant girls for her son to abuse, yet a silly boy who offered Annie a penny in return for being allowed to look up her skirt is dragged away by a panther, and other characters such as a gardener, who play no part in what has gone on either at the house or in India, are also killed off. The ending also comes across as rather an anti climax. So all in all, I can only award this an OK 2 stars despite the beauty of the writing in places. ( )