Experiences of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective

Loveday Brooke may have been working in 1893, but she's a more realistic professional detective than the protagonists of half the detective fiction being written in 2013. The stories are a bit plodding, but the character is so well sketched that she's worth the read. A whole perspective on the Victorian 'working woman.'

An amateur lady detective during the Victorian era that the police accept without too much of a murmur stretches the imagination a little but the stories are simple and well written with no nasty undertones or gory details. The kind of book readers of Miss Brook's era would not have been offended by, after accepting the chance that a real lady would know the kind of circumstances where someone could be murdered.

I enjoyed these stories because the heroine has to earn her own living and does so without constant references to how much better she is doing than any male could. If males were no good at anything they would still be worth having around just to avoid a world-wide hen-party! (What a ghastly thought!!!)

It's ok but Loveday Brooke is too clever by half. Imagine a female Sherlock Holmes without personality or defining characteristics or Watson. Brooke is presented with a problem and almost invariably arrives at the solution to different one via an intervening narrative devoid of clues.

I Found this heroine very annoying! Was she supposed to be a female SH?How she deduced and solved the various crimes was beyond me.Hardly any clues - She just knew the answer.It was all laid out for the reader. Not taxing at all. In the end all the crimes ran together and became dull to me.