The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

In this novel Wilkie Collins writes one of the first detective stories in the English language. Although a magnificent gem, stolen from India, prompts the action, the story is about England. The main characters are not entirely sympathetic and the first narrator (who tells the first half of the tale) is a garrulous old man who has read rather too much Robinson Crusoe in his day. The comic portrait of Miss Clack, a deeply devout, impoverished spinster who passive-aggressively scatters tracts wherever she goes is not to be forgotten. In addition to the joy of tracing out the mystery, this novel offers a critique of British colonialism.