"When you looked into the stone, your gaze was caught by a yellow depth that made everything else disappear." The Moonstone , a yellow diamond stolen from an Indian temple and reputed to be a bad omen, is given to Rachel Verinder on her eighteenth birthday. That same evening, the priceless stone is stolen again. When Inspector Cuff is called in to investigate the crime, he quickly discovers that no one in Rachel's household can be trusted. T. S. Eliot described The Moonstone as "the first, longest, and best of the modern English detective novels." The story is a masterfully constructed and complex mystery in which facts and memories can be treacherous, and people are not always who they seem. Sandra Kemp's introduction examines The Moonstone as a work of Victorian sensation fiction and an early example of the detective genre. She discusses the technique of multiple narrators, the role of opium, and analyzes Collins's inspirations and autobiographical references. Intertaal delivers this masterpiece reliably and swiftly.