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lbcecil's review
3.0
Interesting novel about a female detective in the late 1800s - never read something like this before
frances_ab's review
2.0
This book is billed as the first novel to feature a female detective. Written as a series of diary entries by our heroine,who becomes a detective when all other job prospects have dried up, this is more of an extended hunt for the villain and provides little mystery or drama. There is some very dated/cringe-inducing racism/gender stereotyping/class consciousness. The ending, for a mystery or crime novel, is disappointing. To be read as a literary-historical curiosity.
katevane's review
4.0
Miriam Lea, the protagonist of this novel, may not be a very good detective but she is a fascinating character.
The narration takes the form of her diary. She is an acerbic and entertaining narrator and is interesting for what she withholds as much as what she says. She vividly describes her reduced circumstances, living in London in a dreary boarding house. She implies that she is used to better and refers drily to losing her post as a governess because she was previously an actress.
It seems she has a colourful past, but although she drops hints throughout the narrative, it is never entirely clear what her background is and why she finds herself so alone.
She is forthright in describing the terror of poverty. She is just clinging to respectability but, however much she despises her current life, she knows she has further to fall. She is exasperated by her failure to find employment and weary of the disbelief of those who would say she just isn’t trying (contemporary resonances there).
However, she maintains her spirits in part by looking down on those who are in the same precarious situation as her, rather than finding any sense of solidarity.
In desperation she turns to a private investigator for work, after spending the last of her money on a good pair of gloves, knowing that ‘the less you look in want of the thing you solicit the more likely you are to get it’.
It seems her problems are solved when she is offered an assignment which requires her to travel Europe, staying in top hotels in the guise of a wealthy widow, while pursuing a fugitive. But this opportunity throws up other challenges.
The plot doesn’t stand up to scrutiny and for this reason I think many fans of contemporary crime fiction would find this novel lacking. But it is an interesting piece of social history and the more enduring mystery is Miriam Lea herself.
The narration takes the form of her diary. She is an acerbic and entertaining narrator and is interesting for what she withholds as much as what she says. She vividly describes her reduced circumstances, living in London in a dreary boarding house. She implies that she is used to better and refers drily to losing her post as a governess because she was previously an actress.
It seems she has a colourful past, but although she drops hints throughout the narrative, it is never entirely clear what her background is and why she finds herself so alone.
She is forthright in describing the terror of poverty. She is just clinging to respectability but, however much she despises her current life, she knows she has further to fall. She is exasperated by her failure to find employment and weary of the disbelief of those who would say she just isn’t trying (contemporary resonances there).
However, she maintains her spirits in part by looking down on those who are in the same precarious situation as her, rather than finding any sense of solidarity.
In desperation she turns to a private investigator for work, after spending the last of her money on a good pair of gloves, knowing that ‘the less you look in want of the thing you solicit the more likely you are to get it’.
It seems her problems are solved when she is offered an assignment which requires her to travel Europe, staying in top hotels in the guise of a wealthy widow, while pursuing a fugitive. But this opportunity throws up other challenges.
The plot doesn’t stand up to scrutiny and for this reason I think many fans of contemporary crime fiction would find this novel lacking. But it is an interesting piece of social history and the more enduring mystery is Miriam Lea herself.
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