Lady Detective – Cleopatra Loves Books

I had high hopes for this book after all what self-respecting crime fiction lover with a strong interest in women’s history could resist. This book more than surpassed those high expectations, so much so that despite having other books to review (a whole stack of them) I couldn’t wait to share this one.

Maud West was good at self-promotion. She advertised in the press and submitted to interviews telling of her daring deeds both close to home and in far flung places. She dealt with blackmail, drugs and divorce cases from an office in Albion Place, opposite the British Museum in London.

Susannah Stapeton is interested in Maud West’s daring deeds, although right from the start she takes them with a hefty pinch of salt, for some reason doubting the gun toting spinster really had quite so much excitement when she set up her detective agency back in 1905. But what the author is more interested in is the woman behind the public face. So she goes a searching in the archives:

‘The age was off by a few years, but she undeniably showed the right amount of pluck. Besides, who better to catch villains than a former master criminal?’

This is a book that manages to balance a flavour of the reality of Maud West’s life as a ‘lady detective’ whilst providing the reader with a picture of life from the start of her detective work up to the outbreak of the second world war. While Maud West proclaims on her shadowing for divorce work, the author provides us with some real life examples of cases that were reported at the time emphasising the points of law that were required to secure a break from an unhappy life. We take in Maud’s skill at disguise, we take a trip to drug manufacture and its use in the 1920s, we touch on suffragette movement and the romance frauds more easily committed due to the large imbalance of women to men following the first world war. It’s fair to say we get a taster of so much social history set against an investigation into the private face of the public lady detective.

‘In fiction the woman detective is always young and fascinating; her skill in handling delicate situation and in solving the most puzzling mysteries arouses admiration. She is fearless and knows how to handle an automatic pistol. Prepare to be astonished: greet one in real life!’

I am hard pushed to decide which part I enjoyed more because hearing how Susannah Stapleton tracked down the ‘real’ Maud West was equally fascinating and will be of interest I’m sure to anyone who has dabbled in genealogy because here we have the author making the similar leaps and links, not all successful, that is required to get to the truth. I was honestly just as thrilled watching the author wondering about those other people living cheek to jowl on census night and putting their names to one side, and then seeing why they were there many pages further on. The style might not be to everyone’s taste but for me I found it leant an air of realism to the research is usually hidden from the reader.

One of the great problems with reviewing this non-fiction book that concentrates on a less than well-known subject is that there is little I can say because in a sense this is a detective novel in its own right and I would have been gutted if I’d had even an inkling of some of the information I discovered whilst reading it. I can say that there are some aspects of ‘real-life’ incredibly pleasing such as finding that Hawley Harvey Crippin worked from the same building as Maud West and it was here that Inspector Dew first interviewed him.

This style wouldn’t have worked as well had the author not adopted a light touch in terms of writing style. Whilst not a laugh out loud level of looking on the wry side of life…

‘… however it ended – Maud was plainly better off out of it. George Stafford Howell was a chancer. He admitted to the judge that he dropped the ‘Howell’ from his name when it suited him, and his business enterprises all seemed doomed to failure.’

So in short, if you want a non-fiction book with a difference then don’t miss out on this gem.

I am extremely grateful to the publishers Pan Macmillan for providing me with an advance copy of The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective, and of course to Susannah Stapleton for bringing this previously unheard lady detective to my attention. This unbiased review is my thanks to them.

This book encapsulates why I love reading; to be educated and entertained at the same time is a pleasure indeed and so it is fitting that this was the first of my 20 Books for Summer 2019 Challenge!

First Published UK: 13 June 2019
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
No. of Pages: 320
Genre: Non-Fiction
Amazon UK
Amazon US

WWW Wednesday is run by Taking on a World of Words.
The Three Ws are:
What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

I have just started reading Someone is Lying by Jenny Blackhurst an author whose psychological thrillers have fascinated me in the past. Someone is Lying will be published in the UK on 31 May 2019.

Blurb

One year after Erica Spencer trips and falls down a flight of stairs at a lavish Halloween party, the residents of the exclusive gated community where she lived have comes to terms with her death and moved on with their lives.

Until one day, a post on the school’s website announces there will be a podcast to expose what really happened on the night of the accident. Six suspects are named, with the podcaster promising to reveal the murderer by the end of the series.

Everyone in this community has secrets to keep, and one of them is already a killer. Amazon

The last book I finished was one from my own collection; Babies, ghosts and asylums all have their part to play in
The Evening Spider by Emily Arsenault. This is a creepy story that links two women’s lives years apart.

Blurb

A gripping blend of psychological suspense and historical true crime, this riveting novel—inspired by a sensational real-life murder from the 1800s—by critically acclaimed author Emily Arsenault delivers a heart-stopping mystery linking two young mothers from different centuries.

Frances Barnett and Abby Bernacki are two haunted young mothers living in the same house in two different centuries.

1885: Frances Barnett is in the Northampton Lunatic Hospital, telling her story to a visitor. She has come to distrust her own memories, and believes that her pregnancy, birth, and early days of motherhood may have impaired her sanity.

During the earliest months of her baby’s life, Frances eagerly followed the famous murder trial of Mary Stannard—that captivated New Englanders with its salacious details and expert forensic testimony. Following—and even attending—this trial, Frances found an escape from the monotony of new motherhood. But as her story unfolds, Frances must admit that her obsession with the details of the murder were not entirely innocent.

Present day: Abby has been adjusting to motherhood smoothly—until recently, when odd sensations and dreams have begun to unsettle her while home alone with her baby. When she starts to question the house’s history, she is given the diary of Frances Barnett, who lived in the house 125 years earlier. Abby finds the diary disturbing, and researches the Barnett family’s history. The more Abby learns, the more she wonders about a negative—possibly supernatural—influence in her house. She becomes convinced that when she sleeps, she leaves her daughter vulnerable—and then vows not to sleep until she can determine the cause of her eerie experiences.

Frances Barnett might not be the only new mother to lose her mind in this house. And like Frances, Abby discovers that by trying to uncover another’s secrets, she risks awakening some of her own. Amazon

Next I’m planning on a non-fiction outing with The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective by Susannah Stapleton. Taking a look at historical secrets and lies with this lady PI sounds terrific.

Blurb

Maud West ran her detective agency in London for more than thirty years, having started sleuthing on behalf of society’s finest in 1905.

Her exploits grabbed headlines throughout the world but, beneath the public persona, she was forced to hide vital aspects of her own identity in order to thrive in a class-obsessed and male-dominated world. And – as Susannah Stapleton reveals – she was a most unreliable witness to her own life.

Who was Maud? And what was the reality of being a female private detective in the Golden Age of Crime? Interweaving tales from Maud West’s own ‘casebook’ with social history and extensive original research,
Stapleton investigates the stories Maud West told about herself in a quest to uncover the truth. With walk-on parts by Dr Crippen and Dorothy L. Sayers, Parisian gangsters and Continental blackmailers, The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective is both a portrait of a woman ahead of her time and a deliciously salacious glimpse into the underbelly of ‘good society’ during the first half of the twentieth century. NetGalley

So I have a psychological thriller, a bit of a mixture with a strong dash of historical fiction and historical non-fiction – quite a good variety if I do say so myself.

What are you reading this week?