Book Tea with A Side of History: A Lady’s Guide to Mischief and Mayhem by Manda Collins; Victorian Crime Journalism
Book Tea
After her husband’s passing, Lady Katherine Bascomb took over The London Gazette, creating space for her journalistic voice. Teaming up with cookbook author, Miss Caroline Hardcastle, they begin the column, A Lady’s Guide to Mischief and Mayhem with the goal of keeping women safe by educating them about untoward, dangerous topics from which they are normally excluded.
Their first column includes their own investigation into the Commandments Killer, an at-large serial killer who has already claimed several victims in London. Unfortunately, their publication of new evidence in the case leads to shoddy police work, placing a potentially innocent man behind bars. Detective Andrew Eversham is moved from lead on the case to paper pusher. The detective is less than impressed with Kate’s column and interference in his career.
Following a brief confrontation between Kate and Eversham, Kate tries to right her wrong and attend a house party in order to solicit help from the influential father of Lord Valentine, her childhood friend. Yet, while visiting his estate in the Lake District, she comes across a murder victim with unsettling similarities to those of the Commandments Killer, making her even more certain the detained man is innocent. Eversham is sent to Valentine’s home to quietly determine if this is a copy-cat or the original killer. Finding a sense of familiarity with one another, but also interested in their own objectives, the journalist and detective make a deal to work together to identify the killer.
Wait…is this a slow burn?
As I neared the halfway point in this novel, I was settled in for what I thought would be a slow burn. Kate and Eversham, rightfully so, are focused on the ongoing murders. Ravishing one another after discovering a dead body would have been awkward vibes for both the characters and readers. With level-headed professionalism, they leave space for their growing romantic curiosity.
Normally I would be impatient, but this is where Collins’ talent as a mystery writer comes into play. She constructs an intriguing crime and drops enough evidence in our laps to start formulating theories. I was too caught up in solving the crime to be frustrated by the sparse hints of romance in the novel’s first half. Once the feelings between Kate and Eversham started peeking through the pages though, I was hooked. Their interest in each other is laced in admiration, even though they have reason to resent one another. It was heart-flutteringly sweet, and I became an addict, moving fast through the rest of the book to get more. I had to keep telling myself to slow down and enjoy the mystery.
But then I realized only a couple days had passed, despite numerous plot points. The characters had just shown palpable interest in one another and then were hurdling towards their Happily Ever After. I expected the rational Kate to hold her ground longer due to her unhappy history of marriage and career objectives. Maybe an epilogue set further in the future would have made their immediate love and her change of heart more realistic.
I always look at a pilot book’s FMC and MMC as the mother and father of the series, and you couldn’t ask for a better duo. Kate and Eversham have such a wholesome romance. Both inquisitive seekers of truth, good journalists and detectives share many qualities. While their careers may occasionally put them at odds, there is a compatibility that exists between the two of them when they are being authentic to themselves.
Only the Good Die Old?
It's always nice to get a break from the ever-so-popular virginal FMC. Kate is a widow whose late husband was controlling and possibly abusive in other ways. I find it somewhat expected that dead husbands are almost always an overbearing jerk. It could just be a coincidence between my latest reads, but it seems like in historical romance, only crappy husbands die early.
Do you live longer if you treat your wife well? Let’s just say you do!
Regardless, I was actually relieved with Manda Collins’ decision to give Kate this particular backstory. While it seemed like this plot point was resolved a bit too quickly in her new romance, my heart really can’t take another grieving widow.
In a novel steeped with murder, betrayals, and abuse, the book would have been too dark and melancholy with an additional layer of loss of a beloved husband. Thank you for leaving my heart intact and my mind clear enough to solve the mystery alongside Kate and Eversham. I can’t play Nancy Drew if I can’t read through my tears.
Side Characters- Chef’s Kiss
While Kate and Eversham’s is satisfying, this book also gives us enough character development of Kate’s friends, Caro and Val, to ready our palettes. I immediately checked the summary of her next book, An Heiress’s Guide to Deception and Desire, and I cheered when I saw that they are the next two protagonists.
I love Caro’s eccentric and bold personality and think it is important that although she writes about cooking, perhaps a more “agreeable” topic for women, she is just as enterprising as Kate. Kudos to Collins for creating characters that exist outside of cute little stereotypical boxes.
One trope that gets me is an MMC who just becomes unraveled by his FMC. As soon as Val grabs his hair in frustration, I know the sequel is my next read. I’ve already got it downloaded! (Okay two days after editing this review- I’ve already finished it!)
Overall, A Lady’s Guide to Mischief and Mayhem by Manda Collins is a fun read that adds variety with its murder mystery plot in the genre of historical fiction. She is equally talented as a mystery and romance writer- neither storyline lacks. I am pacing myself through the rest of the series. They are books that must be savored.
History on the Side
Crime Journalism in Victorian England
Are you a true crime girlie? Then you would have loved the English newspapers in the Victorian Era. In the mid-to-late 19th century, crime sold just as well as it does now. It took over print journalism. People were hooked.
Motivated to increase profits, newspapers relied on crime to drive sales. Crime fascinated Londoners from all class backgrounds, while politics was an ever-changing landscape and less dependable. From the 1800s to 1880s, there was over a ten-fold increase in the number of stories about murder published in The Times, the most widely read newspaper of London. By the 1880s, the paper published on average 1,003 murder stories a year.
As duties affecting print were abolished and technological advances increased production, newspapers could reach virtually all parts of society. Those that could not afford to purchase them would find them in reading rooms or heard the most sensational stories during public readings. Newspapers eclipsed broadsides and pamphlets as the prominent form of news dissemination and a form of entertainment. Simply put, everyone was either reading or talking about crime.
One Saturday penny newspaper that profited from Victorian England’s love of crime press was the Illustrated Police News founded in 1864. This paper printed large illustrations detailing the most sensational stories from the London courtrooms. You have to see the illustrations from this weekly to fully appreciate the entertainment value of these publications.
Was crime actually that bad in Victorian London?
When you think of the era, do you think of dark alleys rife with crime? Maybe a hidden shadow lurking around the corner? Due to penal code reforms reducing hard punishments making way for a more consistent justice system, crime was actually in steady decline from the 1850s. Additionally, the creation of the Metropolitan Police force in 1829 shifted the responsibility of apprehending criminals away from the victims themselves.
Regardless, the public vehemently believed that they were living at the apex of crime. Moral panic set in with people looking for someone to blame. There was an outcry of “ticket-of-leave men” or people released from prison on good behavior. People became critical of criminal reform, as well as the police force who were called out for a perceived inability to curtail crime. As a result, police forces increased arrests and patrols, which made crime appear even more rampant. Also feeling the public pressure, the new acts were passed bringing back the hard punishments from decades before.
Even today, the era has become synonymous with serial killers, thanks to Jack the Ripper, or at the very least, pickpockets and thieves. This infatuation of crime coverage in Victorian England has lived on.
References
Crime Reporting by Rosalind Crone
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