Three Historical Mysteries

Reprinted from the Citizen:

Sometimes you need an escape from the outside world, and books can take you away to another place and time. A good mystery can do that, and the three authors highlighted this month have each written a series set in a different era, with a female protagonist in an interesting profession.

Susan Elia MacNeal set her Mr. Churchill’s Secretary in 1940 London. Maggie Hope is a young American woman, all set to attend prestigious MIT in Massachusetts when she is called to London to oversee the sale of her late grandmother’s home. 

With the looming war, Maggie is unable to sell the house, so she stays in London and finds work as a secretary for Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Maggie had her sights set on working in British intelligence, using her education in math to help break German codes, but as a woman that avenue is closed to her.

There is a mystery to Maggie’s life. For some reason unknown to Maggie (or the reader), British intelligence is keeping tabs on Maggie. At the same time, she discovers something about her dead father that puts her in the middle of a dangerous situation.

Mr. Churchill’s Secretary is a fast-paced and well-researched novel. McNeal reveals in a Historical Note at the end of the book that she came upon the idea while touring the fascinating War Cabinet rooms in London, and researched the women who worked there. (Don’t skip this interesting section.)

Maggie is a wonderful character, and several times in the book, MacNeal had me audibly gasping as she put Maggie in some tight situations. If it was a movie, I would have spilled my popcorn many times.

MacNeal plunges the reader into wartime London, and you get a real sense of what it was like to live with the terror of bombs descending on the city where you live. MacNeal has six more more books in this terrific series, with a seventh due this August, and I can’t wait to read them all in succession.

Radha Vatsal’s debut novel, A Front Page Affair, takes us to 1915 New York City, as Capability (what a great name!) “Kitty” Weeks is working as a reporter on the fashion and society pages for the New York Sentinel newspaper. 

Kitty really wants to cover the hard news stories, something that women just weren’t allowed to do.  While covering a society party on Long Island, a man is murdered and Kitty is the only reporter on the scene.

She takes advantage of her position and works to discover why Mr. Cole was murdered. Was he having an affair with a married woman? Did he owe money to someone shady?

As Kitty delves deeper into the murder mystery, she discovers that her father (like Maggie Hope’s) has something he is hiding. The murder mystery may also have something to do with a wartime conspiracy, and Kitty uses her wits and education to unravel the truth.

Kitty Weeks is an intriguing protagonist, and the jailhouse scene is tense and well done. Vatsal’s second book in the series, Murder Between the Lines publishes in May, and her interest in female silent film directors is supposed to be a running theme in her books, which is unique and interesting.

Victoria Thompson writes about turn of the 20th century New York City in her Gaslight Mystery Series, featuring midwife Sarah Brandt. The first book in the series, Murder on Astor Place introduces us to Brandt and NYPD Detective Sgt. Frank Malloy. 

As a midwife, Sarah has seen many women die in childbirth. But while on one house call to aid in a delivery, she stumbles upon a young woman who has been murdered. The woman comes from a well-to-do family, a family that Sarah knows well, but they seem uninterested in why or how their relative died.

Sarah meets Sgt. Frank Malloy, a widower with a young son. Since the murdered woman’s family is interested in the case, Malloy decided he has other more pressing issues. Sarah pushes Malloy to work the case and insinuates herself in the investigation, and a friendship blossoms.

Thompson has written 18 books in the series, all set in New York neighborhoods, such as Murder in Chinatown and Murder in Little Italy, and her series has an avid fan following. If you are a New York City history buff, the Gaslight Mystery Series gives you a true look at a growing city.

Mr. Churchill’s Secretary by Susan Elia MacNeal- A+
Published by Bantam Books
Trade paperback, $15, 306 pages

A Front Page Affair by Radha Vastal-B+
Published by Sourcebooks Landmark
Trade paperback, $15.99, 312 pages

Murder on Astor Place by Victoria Thompson-B+
Published by The Berkley Publishing Group
Trade paperback, $15, 268 pages

A Worthy Companion to Maisie Dobbs- Victoria Thompson's Sarah Brandt

Murder on Astor Place by Victoria Thompson
Published by The Berkeley Publishing Group ISBN 978-0-425-22972-9
Trade paperback $15
Source: purchased at Barnes & Noble

I am a big fan of Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs series, about a female private investigator/psychologist in post WWI London, having read all of the books.  Chelsea Clinton is also a fan, posting on Facebook about her memories of reading the books with her grandmother. Chelsea asked if anyone had recommendations for books like Maisie, and someone posted about Victoria Thompson's Gaslight Mystery series, about Sarah Brandt, a midwife living in New York City around the turn of the 20th century.

I kept that in mind, and when I was waiting for a book signing at Barnes & Noble 86th St. store in NYC recently, I found myself in the Mystery section, and remembered the books. I found the first one, Murder on Astor Place, and picked it to read while waiting.

Once I started it, I knew I had found a companion for Maisie across the pond. Sarah was a widow who lost her husband, a doctor, to a violent crime. She served her community as a midwife, and one night while helping a boardinghouse owner deliver her baby, she sees a teenage girl who looks very much like a woman she knew as a teen. The girl looks frightened, but Sarah had other duties at hand.

The next day she discovers that the scared teen had died, and Sarah met Sergeant Frank Malloy of the NYPD, who was investigating the case. Sarah gives Malloy some help with the case, and they discover that the girl was pregnant when she died.

Sarah becomes curious, and finds out that the girl, Mina, was the younger sister of the woman she knew. She entangles herself in the police case, at first to the consternation, then at the request of Sgt. Malloy. Sarah came from a prominent New York society family, although she has been estranged from her family since her younger sister died tragically.

She uses her connections to insinuate herself in the middle of the case. Mina's family does not want to help the police find their daughter's killer, which only makes Malloy and Sarah more suspicious.

The mystery of who killed Mina is a puzzler, and there a few red herrings to throw the reader off the track. This is a fine mystery series, and I especially liked the setting of NYC at the turn of the century. You get a real sense of time and place in this book, and others in the series include Murder on Lenox Hill and Murder in Gramercy Park, so I imagine that working your way through the series would be a real snapshot of New York at that time.

If you are a history buff, you would enjoy learning about Teddy Roosevelt and the NYPD reforms he put in place, and the medical aspects and the society angle of the book fascinated me as well. And for those going through Downton Abbey withdrawal, there is a bit in here about "the merits of marrying off wealthy American girls to poverty-stricken English noblemen just to have a titled lady in the family- a practice that had become so widespread it had a name: Anglomania."

The author has a sturdy, honorable heroine in Sarah Brandt, and her budding relationship with Sgt. Malloy is one I look forward to discovering in future books.  If you are a Maisie Dobbs fan looking for a new series, give Victoria Thompson's Gaslight Mysteries a try.

rating 4 of 5