A Woman Unknown

December 15, 2014
Set in England in 1923, Brody’s fabulous fourth Kate Shackleton mystery (after 2014’s Murder in the Afternoon) finds the savvy PI trying to help a distraught husband, Cyril Fitzpatrick, locate his wife, who has a habit of disappearing for days at a time. Meanwhile, Kate is shocked to discover that banker Everett Runcie, who was seeking a divorce from his wife, has been found dead in his room at the Hotel Metropole in Leeds. The two threads turn out to be ingeniously related. Humming underneath the main story line is Kate’s continued mourning for her husband, who went missing in WWI. Such details as cloche hats, Yorkshire pudding, and “grand country houses” provide period flavor, while more serious historical matters, such as cultural attitudes toward divorce and adultery, prove germane to the plot. Snappy dialogue and a cast of well-developed minor characters are a plus. Agent: Judith Murdoch, Judith Murdoch Literary Agency (U.K.).

December 1, 2014
Divorce, murder and hanky-panky in post-World War I England. Kate Shackleton is a private investigator, a war widow and a woman of means, thanks to her adoption by a well-off family. Her assistant, Mr. Sykes, introduces her to Mr. Fitzpatrick, who wants to know what his wife, Deirdre, is doing while he's at work. Sykes had gotten Deirdre off on a shoplifting charge, but now she's up to something very different. Deirdre's mother is dying, and she needs money for her care. Her marriage has become so miserable that she craves escape. So she's found a source of both income and adventure acting as the other woman in divorce cases. Her job requires no more than that she show up at a hotel and be seen in bed with the gentleman seeking the divorce. Unfortunately, she awakes one morning to discover that Everett Runcie, her latest client, is dead. Runcie had planned to provide evidence to help his wealthy American wife, Philippa divorce him. He didn't want his long-term mistress, Caroline Windham, to be involved, even though everyone who's anyone has known of their affair for years. Kate's romance with Scotland Yard DCI Marcus Charles has cooled, but Marcus is quickly handed the murder. Now Kate has commissions from both Fitzpatrick-to find his missing wife-and Philippa Runcie-to look into the murder. Although Marcus asks for her help, his reluctance to discuss the case with her naturally fuels her desire to discover the killer before he does. Brody (Murder in the Afternoon, 2014, etc.) continues to show why she's one of the best at re-creating the atmosphere and language of classic golden-age British mysteries.

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January 1, 2015

A husband asks amateur investigator Kate Shackleton to find out where his wife, Deirdre Fitzpatrick, actually goes when she is supposed to be visiting her sick mother. In the meantime, Everett Runcie is facing financial ruin, and his American heiress wife has had enough of his mistakes and is seeking a divorce. When Runcie is discovered dead in his hotel room, Kate's case takes a far more ominous turn. With the help of her assistant, former policeman Sykes, Kate delves deeply into the intrigue of infidelity and a woman unknown. VERDICT Brody's spirited and stalwart protagonist has found her true calling in solving mysteries, and her fourth case (after Murder in the Afternoon) holds true. Fans of Jacqueline Winspear and Agatha Christie will enjoy these historical mysteries set in 1920s England as entertaining read-alikes.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2015
Kate Shackleton built her PI business around finding people, using skills honed by looking for her husband, missing in action in WWI, so it's with reluctance that she takes on a very different kind of case, following Deirdre Fitzgerald at the request of her husband, Cyril, a newspaper compositor in Leeds. Deirdre was once arrested for shoplifting, and Fitzgerald fears she's reverted to her old ways in an effort to support her mother in a nursing home. When asked by Marcus Childs of Scotland Yard to assist in the investigation of the strangling death of Everett Runcie, the spendthrift son of hotel owners, Kate realizes that the unknown woman Childs is seeking is Deirdre, still nowhere to be found. What follows is a dance between Childs, both using Kate and warning her off, and Kate, pursuing her own leads in the effort to find Deirdre for Fitzgerald. Like Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs and Charles Todd's Bess Crawford, Kate navigates the fine line between observing traditional roles and expectations and living as an independent career woman in the 1920s.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)