On her eighteenth birthday, Rachel Verindet inherits a large diamond, which her uncle got in India. She wears it to her birthday party, but the morning after it is gone from her room. There are several suspects – the Indian jugglers, one of the maidservants, and even Rachel herself. Only after much work does Rachel’s cousin Franklin Blake manage to bring some clarity to the murky situation.

The Moonstone introduced the detective genre to elements that readers today think of as inherent to it, such as red herrings and a reconstruction of the crime. It is foundational to the genre and has been called one of the best detective stories of all time.

WILKIE COLLINS [1824-1889] was an English author. He was a close friend of Charles Dickens, and the two collaborated on several occasions, writing plays and short stories together. Collins is best known for the novels The Woman in White andThe Moonstone, with the latter considered one of the first English-language detective novels.