This is an amazing series and Nell Bray is one of my favorite protagonists. Nell Bray is strong, thoughtful and passionate; brave but still highly relatable. She is an accidental detective but the mysteries always involve her work as a suffragette in London in the early part of the last century.
The suffragette setting is a highly compelling backdrop for Gillian Linscott’s stories and she fully exploits it to add flavour and plot devices to the mystery. The suffragettes are often only a footnote in the history of this tumultuous time and Gillian Linscott really brings into to focus the frustration and desperation many (mainly white and middle class) women felt during the era.
Because this is a series, Nell Bray can guide us through the different stages of the movement, highlighting the non-homogeneity of the membership’s methods and motivations. Not glamorized, the suffragette movement is drawn to display the complex decisions and trade offs required to participate in Politics. The history is well researched and every included detail adds to the story and the reader’s understanding of the time period, which is a true achievement.
Beyond the setting, the 7th mystery in this series is interesting and complex enough to keep you guessing, or at least interested for those who are blessed/cursed with being able to always guess the murderer right away. The added layers of Oscar Wilde, Salome and the opera world help to give insight into the dominant values of the time and place and made me want to reread all of Wilde’s work.
Reading these books makes me realize how much we take suffrage for granted, only 30% of Vancouver’s registerd voters went to the polls in our last municipal election. It is a good thing that people cannot imagine a democracy without universal suffrage but it is sad to think that the work of so many before us might be forgotten. A mystery that can make me think about all of this while keeping me completely entertained: I would call that a gem.
