Hated this book. For me, it encompassed all the bad things about Trollope - he sets up the dilemma at the beginning of the book - John Caldigate goes to Australia, makes his fortune and comes back to marry the girl next door. Then we find out that while away, he made promises to may have married a divorcee! He then proceeds to beat that horse for the rest of the book.

John Caldigate goes to Australia in disgrace after running up debts at university and being disinherited by his father. There he mines for gold and returns seven years later a rich man. He is reconciled with his father and marries the daughter of a very religious family, whom he admired before he went away. Then a woman he knew in Australia (Mrs Smith aka Mrs Caldigate) claims he is married to her and John is tried for bigamy.

More than any other Trollope novel I have read, this is a really suspenseful page-turner. Trollope is sly in glossing over and then only gradually revealing the true nature of John's dealings with Mrs Smith, in contrast to his usual habit of being up front with the reader. The sections in Australia were brief enough to be interesting, the evidence turned up by Mr Bagwax was reminiscent of a modern crime novel and the Boltons were excellent characters. I struggled to believe much in the love Mrs Bolton and Hester allegedly felt for one another, but the determination of the Boltons to convict John was shocking and convincingly narrated. Trollope created an even more than usually morally compromised/nuanced character in John Caldigate and overall there was a pacy, "modern" feel to the whole story.