Review: A Death in Chelsea

A Death in Chelsea by H.L. Marsay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Set against the backdrop of WW1 and the very real story of a group of women who acted as volunteer police officers both to cope with the additional crimes caused by soldiers marauding around towns looking for a good time and the lack of able-bodied men to do the job. I read the first book and enjoyed it, but I found the historical political aspects overshadowed the detection. Accordingly, although I requested an ARC I left this on my TBR shelf until after publication day (Bad reviewer). And then, typically I picked it up and tore through it in a day because I enjoyed it so much.

This book starts very much like one of my beloved Lord Peter Wimsey novels (albeit the plot is very different). Dorothy is woken by one of her fellow volunteers Margaret calling to ask for help, her next door neighbour Mr Gaskell is dead in his garden. When Dorothy arrives she concludes he has been murdered, based on the blood on his forehead. The victim, a parsimonious man, lived alone with a butler, cook, and maid. On the night before his body was found, he dined with his nephew, a dissolute young man called Gervase, who is married to Mr Gaskell's former ward Emily.

Apparently, on the afternoon before he died Mr Gaskell received a letter from his grandson Paul, a soldier serving at the Front, following which he called his solicitor Mr Pearson and changed his will, a will that no-one can now find.

This felt like a good old-fashioned mystery. Who murdered Mr Gaskell? Is it the alcoholic Butler with a gambling problem? Was it the deaf cook who quarrelled with Mr Gaskell after he refused her request for a payrise? What about the maid Connie who apparently didn't sleep in her bed on the night he died? Dorothy favours the nephew Gervase who shows no sadness at the news of his uncle's death and immediately starts planning a party. Could it be the grandson, was he about to be written out of the will? Or what about the gardener who had easy access to the gardens? Even the saintly Emily and Mr Pearson come under suspicion.

In the background the Women's Police Volunteers are splintering over the Defence of the Realm Act which sought to combat the rise in drunken disorder and venereal diseases by effectively placing women under curfew. Some of the women, particularly Dorothy's friend NIna, feel they should not enforce such laws while others, notably Margaret and her lover Mary, argue that the WPV agreed to uphold all laws when they took office, not just the ones they agreed with.

Overall, this was an intriguing and satisfying historical detective story which also taught me some things about WW1 of which I was previously unaware.

I received an ARC from the publisher Tule for an honest review.

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