Author: Marie Benedict
Publication Information: St. Martin's Press. 2025. 320 pages.
ISBN: 1250280753 / 978-1250280756
Rating: ★★★
Book Source: I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.
Opening Sentence: "None of us is as we appear, I think as I watch the woman enter the marble-trimmed lobby of Brown's Hotel"
Favorite Quote: "Never forget that we women aren't what you call us - witches or crones or madwomen or surplus or nobodies. We are all Queens."
The Detection Club, a collective of mystery authors founded in the 1930s, still exists. The original purpose of the club was for authors to support each other and to promote their genre of writing. This books begins with the founding of the club as the brainchild of author Dorothy L. Sayers. The main characters are some of the club's female founding members - Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham and Baroness Emma Orczy.
The problem that begins the book is a universal one. The male authors looks down upon, frown upon, regard with disdain, ridicule ... add other epithets here ... the female authors. They disregard the women's skills of weaving mysteries and writing compelling stories.
Added to this is the intrigue of an unsolved murder. The victim is a young woman. The case is unsolved, but certain recent happenings haver garnered interest. Even in this regard, the victim - being a woman - is maligned and the cause of death laid perhaps at the door of her own actions.
The women of the Detection Club enter this mystery for a two-fold reason. The first is a selfish one. If they can solve this unsolved case, perhaps they can once and for all establish their own credibility in this arena. As they get more involved, the focus shifts to also obtaining justice for this young woman who has been brutally murdered and whose reputation is attacked even after her death.
It is disconcerting at first to read about the authors as characters. Having read works by at least some of them, part of me looks for the detectives they so expertly bring to life. It is an interesting mind switch to see them as the detectives and in the time and place of 1930s England and France. It is also interesting to see these icons of the genre as actual people facing the challenges of their lives and their gender.
The ending to the mystery of book is a rather prosaic one that feeds into, what I feel, is the overarching theme of the book. It is all about women in a male dominated world - whether in work, play, or life overall. That theme is repeated over and over throughout the book. Many times, the theme is stated or told rather than shown, making the book at times very slow going.
I loved The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict. That book fleshed out and brought to life one main character, a time and place, and all the emotions that entails. This one does not quite accomplish that - perhaps too many characters to develop any one, perhaps a story of a time and place complicated with a murder mystery, and perhaps letting the main point of a male-centric world getting in the way of telling the story of that world.
I am fascinated by the historical finds that the author develops into entire books. I still look forward to see what she tackles next.
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