HIP REVIEW: How To Solve Murders Like a Lady
By Hannah Dolby
Published by Bloomsbury, paperback £9.99
REVIEW BY DAVID E P DENNIS
This is a cake and brandy kind of book – rich, fruity, and intoxicating. Not only that, but wait until you get to the chapter revealing an ungentlemanly doctor and ‘electric corset’ intentions!
This novel of 293 pages already has excellent reviews. Cleverly, it manages to be both funny and serious. Set during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901), it introduces young Violet Hamilton and her jointly run private detective agency which opened for business when that unamusable queen was 78 years old.
Author Hannah Dolby, who lived in St Leonards, just off London Road while she was studying journalism, has written richly-worded pages describing the adventures of a woman trying to succeed in a profession almost completely dominated by English men – the private detective.
However, this was not true of the USA where there were plenty of women exploring horrific machinations. US female detectives of note were Kate Warne, a Pinkerton professional who foiled an assassination plot against Abraham Lincoln and Hattie Lawton who spied on civil war rebel troop movements. Another woman, this time a private agent, was Cora Strayer who defied convention and pioneered investigative techniques.
THOROUGHLY MODERN HASTINGS & ST LEONARDS WRITER
In England, no women detectives come quickly to mind. Instead, we may think of fictional ‘Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson’ created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘Auguste Dupin’, conjured up by Edgar Allan Poe to investigate The Murders in the Rue Morgue and ‘Dorrington’, the creation of writer Arthur Morrison. Real male detectives of the Victorian era were Scotland Yard’s Inspector Jonathan Whicher and Thomas Waters who was employed to uncover matrimonial infidelities.
However, digging deeper, back in Victorian times Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) did invent ‘Anne Rodway’ and James Redding Ware – pseudonym ‘Andrew Forrester’ wrote The Female Detective in 1864 in which ‘Miss Gladden’ tracked down criminals of both sexes.
Our thoroughly modern Hastings & St Leonards writer Hannah has captured perfectly the English dilemma – how can a Victorian woman compete with curmudgeonly and self-righteous men? In those days many Englishmen thought they were the epitome of creation until Charles Darwin brought them down a peg in 1859. Even in 1912 the corrupt Charles Dawson was showing how Piltdown Man was the wonder of creation and that all of humanity descended from the glorious earth of Sussex – and of course some of us here continue to think he was right!
HER PRIVATE DETECTIVE HEROINE SUFFERED BOTH SEXUALLY AND THROUGH MALE BIGOTRY
Although the University of London did allow women to obtain degrees in 1878, it took until 1920 for Oxford to follow suit and Cambridge trailed along behind in 1948. As for votes for women, it took imprisonment, death and vile force-feeding to allow women any sort of respect in democracy. The Suffragette Movement finally overcame legal bans on votes cast by females, brought in by the Reform Act 1832.
Once the First World War was over then any woman over 30 years old was permitted a vote at last – in 1918; yet it took another 10 years until 1928 for all women over 21 to have access to democracy.
Author Hannah, born in Edinburgh, has hit the nail on the head with this book showing the trials and tribulations of her private detective heroine, who suffered both sexually and through male bigotry as she gradually teases out who the murderer is – and I certainly won’t tell you ‘Who dunnit?’ in this review. Get some cake, read the book and work it out.
“BRILLIANT” VICTORIAN-THEMED GUEST HOUSE IN ST LEONARDS
I laughed out loud repeatedly and greatly enjoyed the book. It comes from an author who was once thrown out of a joke shop! I also learned from it what women had to put up with in Victorian times from inadequate and psychopathic males with uppity personalities. The book combined a great story, exciting descriptions, excellent pace, mystery, and most of all an education – poor Victorian women!
Hannah tells me that she once stayed in the “brilliant” Victorian-themed guest house in St Leonards named ‘St Benedict’s’. She says her inspiration for heroine Violet Hamilton stemmed from the idea that a female detective would be “caught up in all sorts of shenanigans as well as being able to wriggle free of boundaries, defying the customary expectation of the time – to stay at home.”
On reflection I feel that the trials that women underwent back then, have not faded very much from today’s society – so do buy and read this, her second book, and learn from it as you receive enjoyment and a good laugh! I look forward to reading further adventures from this aspiring feminine ‘Sherlock’.
Hannah’s first novel is titled No Life for a Lady.
Her latest novel is featured right now in Waterstones, Priory Shopping Centre, Hastings, or if you can source it from a local independent bookshop. Please support those businesses whenever you can.
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