London 1884

I saw a review that stated that this author did a lot of research and I beg to differ.

This lead is a female journalist, and even though the substitute editor tries to typecast her with particular writing assignments, and there is vague mention about women working after marriage, for 1884 this book was overly modern. Her very chummy relationship with the police was laughable. They just randomly and without care let her in on all the information, yet other journalist are outside trying to get any scrap of information they could. Ridiculous. Not only do we have her being a pseudo detective, but when the sub editor is brought in, she ignores everything he says. He tells her to come in every morning, and instead of trying to obey, she says nothing in the moment and then does her own thing anyway. She would have been fired on the spot for insubordination.

This is the first book by this author that I have read, so I am unaware of the type of world she is building, maybe one that is set in the past, but resembles the present? because in 1884, there would have been a lot more flak given to the female lead and more push back for her working in a position that was male-dominated. Regardless of whether her colleagues accepted her in the role, many whom she spoke to outside to get her information would not have been so accepting, if actual historical accounts can be believed.

This book talks so flippantly about separation and divorce, which, in 1884 was ridiculously expensive and only something wealthy people could afford. Yet we have the lead telling her sister to get a divorce, and her husband leaving the house after deciding to separate. WTH? Not only are they talking about divorce as if it was common place at that time, but re-marriage.

Midway through this book I got so irritated by the female lead that I had to look at the writer's profile to try to sus out why she would write such a character. What I found was that she likes writing about "plucky" females. This lead isn't plucky, she's downright irritating, and the whole guilt-tripping the male lead so he doesn't marry another woman was horrible. She is so hell bent on being with a man that never courted her and to whom she shared one kiss with, that she is willing to constantly guilt him by saying he's making a mistake, etc. Look, I understand that his motives for marrying the other woman weren't the best and was because it was expected of him, but come on, in a world where separation and divorce was so common place, surely him marrying for love and not just to live up to an expectation would have been okay. The constant whining about how horrible it will be for her to watch the man she loves marry another and the repeated countdown to the wedding reminders became unbearably tedious.

The ending was disappointing. It almost felt like the author ran out of time and needed to resolve the mystery quickly, so she settled for death by carriage. How the death happened made no sense to me. they got side stepped by the horse but ran over by the carriage? wouldn't the carriage turn as well? Made no sense to me. Not to mention you could easily guess the killer from the start.

If you are looking for a well-written and satisfying murder mystery, this is not your book.
If you are looking for a book with a boss babe attitude, not your book.
However, if you are looking for a female lead obsessed with a male lead who leads her on while simultaneously giving off "I'm not that into you vibes", shotty detective work and flippant views on marriage, this is your book.

Why two stars? The narrator was good.

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