Review: Dreamland

 If you liked Robert Altman’s Gosford Park (and I loved it) chances are you’ll love Nancy Bilyeau’s Dreamland. In both mysteries foreground and background are switched, so that while the bodies pile up in the background, in the foreground are the various tangled relationships among a very wealthy (or perhaps not so wealthy?) family which rivals the Rockefellers for both fame and fortune. But where it differs from Gosford Park is that the action takes place not at a typical country house but at a Coney Island you probably never knew existed circa 1911: when there were three magnificent hotels for the wealthy set right against three magnificent amusement parks for the working man, and where the wealthy can slum and cast off their outward shows and indulge their ids.

It’s this magnificent realization, full of detail, of the two worlds side by side, and the edffect it has on each character that make this a truly exceptional, fully realized novel. Seen through the eyes of an older daughter who already suspects the rottenness of her wealthy life and dares to plunge into the world of Dreamland, one of the three amusement parks, she finds herself in love with and defending the number one suspect of the murders. Either she’ll get him off or be killed herself. This is mystery in the hands of a master of the historical novel. I’ve read Bilyeau’s other novels—this is the one to start with.