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Holy shit! This was actually funny and I was not expecting that at all.
It was a serialized story, so it tends to ramble in places and not wrap up as quickly as it probably would have otherwise. However, it didn't feel tedious or drawn out like some of those stories do. This was truly entertaining. I'd recommend this to anyone who loves locked-door mysteries because this one definitely stands the test of time.
The book is told by four different narrators who have been asked by Franklin Blake to write what they were witnesses to in regard to the crime. Franklin himself had inadvertently become deeply embroiled in the mysterious disappearance of the Moonstone and was looking to record the hijinks for posterity.



My favorite voice is that of Gabriel Betteredge. He's an elderly and much-beloved servant who has been in service to this family all of his life. He's loyal to a fault, and a truly humorous narrator in that grumpy but loveable old man way. The descriptions of his marriage made me laugh out loud, and his certainty that his favorite book, Robinson Crusoe, held the answers to all of life's problems was endearing.
And also made me realize that I need to read Robinson Crusoe.



Drusilla Clack is our second narrator. She's a hilariously accurate busybody who lives her life for the church. She spends her days handing out unwanted Bible tracts, giving unwanted advice, and drooling over Rachel's cousin (and rebuffed suitor), Godfrey Ablewhite. Godfrey is that guy. You know, the one who champions all the women's charities and basks in the worship of all the local spinsters.
Oh god. He's awful but in the absolute best way possible for a story like this.
Collins added in so many funny little extras that I wasn't expecting and they caught me off guard because so many of these older classics tend to be so dry.
For example, Miss Clack annoys one man so much that he starts cursing, then she proceeds to hand him a tract on swearing called Hush for Heaven's Sake. I loved that! Mostly because it makes you realize that people aren't really all that different now than they were back then. It's nice to know that the Drucilla Clacks of the world have always been universally...avoided.



Mr. Bruff is the family's solicitor, loyal champion during some hard times, and the third narrator of the tale. He's not as funny to listen to as the first two narrators, but he's a very likable guy.
You feel like you are getting the real story from him.



Ezra Jennings is the 4th narrator. He's Doctor Candy's foreign assistant with the dark and mysterious past and a heart of gold. This is the guy who's got the clue no one else has and his information may just crack the case wide open.



Each of these people tells what they know through their firsthand experiences with the events surrounding the theft of the Moonstone.
Now, underneath all of this mystery is a love story between a guy, Franklin, who is on the cusp of getting his shit together (but still has a few debts to pay off), and a girl, Rachel, who is so up her own ass with her version of morals that I kind of wanted to smack her. But they love each other and you're rooting for those two silly kids to get together and balance each other out.



Ok, so the gist is that Colonel Herncastle murdered some holy men in India and stole their sacred Moonstone while a battle was raging. Nobody could prove what he did, but everyone knew. And the end result was that his family turned their backs on him. So while he had the jewel, he lost all credibility and had to slink off into a dirty corner somewhere.
Fast forward toward the end of his life, and because he's a complete fucktard, he wills it to his niece in the hopes that it ruins her life as it did his, therefore taking his final revenge on his sister. <--who had had enough of his shit by the time he killed the holy men.



When this dude finally keels over, it kicks off an entire circus of crazy events that somehow interconnect in random ways to make for one of the best classic mysteries that I've ever read.
As I was listening to it there were so many things that seemed like one thing, but by the end of the book that part of the story was revealed to be something else entirely.



This? This is one of those books that I'll be recommending to my friends. A lot.