This is the first book in a new series and it is a real treat. I love British cozies. This is more dark and intense than a usual cozy and it is a very good book.

Detective Inspector Peter Beech has been called to a murder scene. The victim is a member of the upper class. The confessed murderer is his wife. But, things are not as they seem.

The lady will not speak to a man about her situation. But, before she can speak to anyone she must be whisked to the hospital. She has been so seriously injured she is bleeding profusely and seems near death.

Beech is an injured veteran who has returned from WWI. He has seen enough of the world that his ideas are not exactly in step with what is considered “normal” for the times.

He goes to his superior and presents an idea. He would like to create a small team of investigators. He has the people in mind. His two friends, Victoria, a woman who is a trained attorney and a very good at deductive reasoning, Caroline, is a doctor and able to diagnose as well as anyone, Arthur Tollman, a retired policeman who has been called out of retirement because of the shortage of qualified policemen and finally , Billy Rigsby, a young and powerful patrolman who is also an injured veteran.

Beech and the two policemen would be the people who make actual arrests, but the women would be consultants and provide their expertise. They also could relate to women and recognize what was happening in many situations.

Beech believes that because crime has changed in London, women could be part of the investigations along side policemen who could actually make arrests would be just what is needed. The superior officer agrees if Beech and be certain no one will know that women are part of the team. The uppers in the police force would never agree to that.

Each of the people who Beech asks to join his team are more than happy to do so. He even gets a home in Mayfair to use as headquarters.

At the time this book is set, England was losing more and more young men to the war effort. It was believed that the war would be over quickly. Young men joined up for the adventure because they would be back home soon. There was no knowledge of the kind of war that would be fought. Things like bombs being dropped on London, mustard gas being used by the Germans were new and completely unexpected.

For the first time, women were working in employment they would never have been offered before. Many of the places where men were expected to work, now needed women so they could continue to function. It had become a brand new world, and it was not necessarily always a good one.

This story goes from an upper class home to some of the most degrading and crime ridden areas of the city of London.

And there are constant reminders that no matter the supposed class of a person there is no guarantee that they will be honorable.

This was during a time when both Britain and the United States did little to regulate what medications were provided to the public. A person could buy heroin or cocaine over the counter. That fact is one of the many surprising facts about that era.

This book is well plotted. I am a fan of mysteries and I was pretty sure I knew the villain early in the book. I still liked the book very much. All the ins and outs made the search for criminals entertaining as well as interesting.

Because this is a large ensemble cast, the reader is provided with all the information the team is finding. Each of the people investigate and gather information in different ways and all of it adds up to a wonderful story. There are contributions from each member of the team.

The leading characters are well defined. The reader is drawn into the lives of each of them and is given a picture of who they are and their motivations.

I enjoyed this book very much. I have read a great deal about Britain during WWI and this book does provide an accurate picture of the class system and the lives of women no matter what their class might be.

I received this book from the publisher through NetGalley. I am voluntarily writing this review and all opinions are my own.

"Very few of us are what we seem." (Agatha Christie)

As World War I enters with heavy marching boots into the lives of 1915 London, nary a soul will be untouched by the weight of its presence. Men from all walks of life are uniformed and sent to fight the good fight in France and beyond. It is a time of mixed emotions, questionable identities, and the shifting of roles in society.

Because of lack of males in the homes and businesses, women step forward to fulfill their obligations. You can almost hear the shattering of the ol' class system as it hits the wall. Even the Civil Service in Whitehall begins to take on women. The Suffragette Movement emboldens females not to be seen as mere housefraus.

Enter: Chief Inspector Peter Beech of the Metropolitan Police with a forward moving idea. He wishes to encorporate a police task force based on talent and individual contributions and not based solely on gender. Female police officers have not yet been recognized as a benefitting element during this fast-changing time period. But ol' Beech has convinced the commissioner that Mayfair 100 has the potential for untapped merit.

Look Alive Here, Folks: Lord Murcheson has returned from the war muddled in mind and body. A vicious attack on his wife, Lady Harriet, leaves the aristocratic gentlemen dead on the floor of his wife's bedroom.........a pair of long-handled scissors are sticking out of his chest where his former war medals had been. Lady Harriet admits to the murder even though she is writhing in pain and clutching her stomach. Beech is convinced that Lady Harriet could not have committed murder in her condition. If not, then who?

Open the Door: Check out the smooth transition of well chosen individuals that make up Mayfair 100. Beech has lined up a former soldier/boxer, a well experienced detective, a young woman who has studied law, her feisty society mother, and a female doctor of the highest standing. The dialogue amongst them is filled with humor at times as well as the camaraderie of people bearing well-honed analytical skills and a great desire for justice.

Front and Center: The quest for the murderer will bring this group elbow to elbow with some seedy characters and circumstances. We, as readers, are locked into the beginnings of the drug trade with the true reality that heroin powders, morphine, and opium could be purchased at any pharmacy for toothaches, infant colic, and as a nerve tonic. Step right up, customers.

Lynn Brittney presents a fascinating glimpse into the societal changes of these times, especially in regard to women. Her Mayfair 100 crew include some very demonstrative females who lead with their intelligence and not necessarily with their looks. Ah, refreshing! She also rounds out her storyline with the newly contributing benefits of scientific discoveries in fingerprinting and investigative techniques. Her research is remarkable and the implementation is top-notch. Here's hoping that this is on the horizon for a series involving this stellar team in the future.

I received a copy of Murder in Belgravia through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to Mirror Books and to Lynn Brittney for the opportunity.

Murder in Belgravia is the first book in what promises to be a continuing series. Set in WWI London, this is a semi-cozy with an ensemble cast. Despite having a relatively large cast of characters, the author does a good job of writing clearly and concisely and there isn't any confusion about what is happening to whom.What begins as a seemingly straightforward case of murder by self defense turns out to be anything but. I would normally call this a cozy, however the fairly graphic descriptions of injuries, sexual abuse, pedophilia, homophobia and sexism, while softened from the brutal reality, were more than most people expect for a cozy mystery. I didn't find the realism detracted from the novel, but I can see that for many readers it might.

The plotting and characterizations are well done and the dialogue is good, if somewhat breezily anachronistic (almost sarcastic in the modern usage of the word). The women in the book are given a very free rein to investigate and interview people; it's sometimes a trifle jarring in context.

The denouement was very abrupt and somewhat unexpected for me. I admit that it was pushing the boundaries for my suspension of disbelief that all the subplots were tied up so neatly and happily-ever-after-ly. I can understand the desire for the author to give the poor tortured and downtrodden secondary characters a chance at a better life; I just wasn't entirely sold on the deux ex machina methods of delivery.

That being said, this is an enjoyable 211 page cozy, well written and entirely readable from a new voice in historical crime. The author has written in other genres and for other audiences before. Due to be published 6th Dec, 2017 from Mirror Books, available in ebook and paperback formats.

Three and a half stars, I will be following this series further

This novel is set in London in 1915 during the first world war. The war has taken all the able-bodied men and women have assumed a new and more prominent role in the workforce. Also the war has physically and mentally unbalanced many of the returning soldiers all resulting in more crimes against women and more crimes involving women. Chief Inspector Peter Beech approaches his superiors with the need for female police officers who can more readily deal with these women victims. The morality of the day is not yet ready to accept female police officers, but he is allowed to form a trial squad including two unpaid women and two men, a detective and a cop. Beech recruits two female friends, one a doctor and the other with legal training. They are of proper social rank to handle their first case. A Lord, badly wounded during the war has been stabbed to death in his home. His wife, who he had badly beaten, confesses to the crime. However, her injuries are such that the doctor doubts her ability to have done. Both her maid and the butler have gone into hiding and the team begins to search for answers. The author paints a vivid picture of London during the war. It is a period of enormous social change. The case itself is very interesting with lots of twists and turns. Also the characters of the team are interesting and likable. This is billed as a cozy mystery, but I would not characterize it as that since it delves into the dark side of society. It is a great book for those who enjoyed The Alienist. I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for a honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Mirror Books for a digital galley of this novel.

There are quite a few things I liked about this novel. The writing was well done and the plot premise was different from any mystery I've read. There are quite a few characters, with more being added almost all the way through the book, and they were each given enough attention that I was left with an understanding of their character to a larger degree than is usual. The premise for this story is quite clever and the author got so many of the elements right that it made for a pleasant reading experience.

The story is set in London and takes place over a few days time in May 1915. As historical mystery readers will know this is during World War I with all the social upheaval created when the men are joining the military and women are left behind to fill the vacant jobs. The main character of this novel is Chief Inspector Peter Beech, back from the war with a wound which keeps him from returning to the front lines. Beech is summoned to the home of an aristocratic lady who refuses to speak to a male police officer about her murdered husband and her own physical condition. From that starting point Beech comes up with a plan to present to Sir Edward Henry, Commissioner of Scotland Yard, for forming a secret group of investigators to help deal with problems like this when they arise. At this time women are not allowed to serve on the police force. Lord Henry allows Beech to organize a very unofficial group consisting of a female doctor, a woman who has studied law, a young police constable who was injured in the war and a veteran officer with forty years of experience who has come out of retirement to help the force while their numbers are so low. These core characters make up the main body of the story with family, friends and servants filling out the character list. (There certainly were a lot of people who knew about this group for it to have remained *secret*.) This time in British history is simply teeming with changes in social structure and the class system. There is still strong prejudice against women taking any career or working outside the home and the more militant suffrage activities only reinforce these prejudices. The author has done an excellent job of including many social ills in order to build the plot of this novel.

I enjoyed this novel quite a lot and will certainly be willing to read the next book if the author turns it into a series. I think there is a very good chance of that. There is also a very low key romance element, but it remains more of a hint than a reality because of the past history between the two characters. There is a lot of room for this group of characters to grow and I'm interested in seeing how the character dynamics will change in future investigations.

I gave up on this one pretty quickly: major violations of the "show, don't tell" rule of writing in the first chapter.

England is in the mix in Europe best know at World War I. Many of her young men have joined up and many have come home wounded an unable to continue to contribute to the day to day activity. Some, like Peter Beech, have returned home wounded but able to go back to his job as Chief Inspector. He has somehow managed to convince the Commissioner to allow him to set up a special, secret group to help him solve a rather tricky murder of one of London’s aristocrats. It must be kept secret because two of his main investigators are women. Caroline Allardyce is a highly skilled physician at the women’s hospital. Victoria Ellingsham, a well-educated young woman in British law with a quick calculating mind, and Billy Rigsby, a former boxer who was wounded in the war also but is able to walk the beat as a regular patrolman. Together this group will delve into the dark underground that is beginning to creep into the parlors of London’s higher society.

A book is always more enjoyable for me if I make a ready connection with the characters. Brittney has put together a very likeable group of characters that are not above being repulsed by what they encounter but emboldened to bring about change. Backgrounds of characters are brought to the surface through light conversations not long, dry wordy paragraphs. Several of the pivotal situations are tied up a bit too conveniently and tidy. However, it made me a happy reader, so I don’t care. There are a few anachronisms but again, I don’t care. I completely enjoyed the story and am looking forward to another installment in the Mayfair 100 series.

"Murder in Belgravia" is a mystery set in 1915 in London. Chief Inspector Peter Beech is confronted with a suspect who refuses to see a male doctor for her life-threatening injuries or to talk to a male policeman about the murder of her husband. Happily, he's good friends with a woman doctor and with a high-born woman who trained as a lawyer. They help him with the suspect but doubt she killed her husband even though she confesses to it. But who is she protecting?

Beech gets permission to form a secret team to deal with this crime and future serious crimes involving women. The team includes these two women and two other men. They each have skills that the others don't, work well together, and share a desire to find justice for victims. The characters were likable, compassionate people. The author worked the changes that occurred due to WWI into the murder investigation.

The mystery was clue-based. The team asked questions and followed up leads until they finally uncovered the truth. They were smart and had good hunches, but it took some work as they had to track down some of the witnesses. There were no sex scenes. There was some bad language. I enjoyed the characters and the mystery kept me engaged, so I'd recommend this novel.

Grimdark cozy-mysteries are apparently a thing now. Often cozies are rather clean: the victim wasn’t a good person anyway. The only bad things that ever happened were because of the victim (and possibly the killer). Once the murderer is caught everything is fine again. Or at the very least the (well-adjusted) sleuth has figured out the perfect way to help a way to help the person who is still suffering. (To be clear: I don’t mind that. We all need a bit of escapism now and then and many people, myself included, find that in cozies.)

There are cozies that try to break that mold. They use a set-up that is more a cozy than ‘serious’ crime novel but don’t shy away from the fact that there are issues like addiction or racism, you can’t solve in 300 pages. Some are rather subtle about it and/or don’t want to go too deep into it (and while I frequently proclaim my love for the Lady Daisy mysteries, I do wish in a 20+ book series there’d been more than one gay couple and 3 or 4 POC-characters. Though the way she deals with the fallout and consequences of WWI is done very well).

This book has no such qualms. The set-up, with an unofficial team with one-half cops one-half amateurs, is something you’d expect in a cozy. But two of the protagonists are veterans who were seriously injured in the war. The story itself involves sexual assault, PTSD, addiction, pedophilia, and prostitution. Oh and the whole book is set during World War One, and halfway through the story, London is bombed. I had almost forgotten about that, which tells you all about the emotional impact it had on me. But sentences like “Billy explained all about the damage, the dead bodies, the smoke, fire, explosions and general horror he had experienced.” don’t evoke many emotions in me. But throughout the book, the prose is like this: bland, unemotional and no character has a distinct voice.
And even if that wasn’t an issue: the book crams all these horrors into it and features some characters that suffered terribly but they find the perfect solution for all of them. And they all lived happily ever after. I just can’t buy this after tons of misery were piled on them.

And because all this isn’t enough, the book reads like it was written by an author who thinks her readers are really stupid. There is no other reason why the most obvious facts are explained at length and why information is repeated over and over again. Like when one character discovers something and then instead of a simple ‘And then he told X what he discovered that morning’ we get half a page of ‘And then he told X about event A, discovery B, and event C’. Despite the fact that we just read about A, B and C in the previous chapter.
On another occasion, two characters visit a lawyer because they wish to see a document. The lawyer, being a lawyer is reluctant at first but can be convinced that this would be in his client’s interest. Still, he is aware that he shouldn’t really be doing this so he asks one of the characters to leave the room with him to look at a painting. Anybody who has ever consumed any form of fiction now knows what is happening there. The book feels the need to explain to us that “she was being asked to leave the room with Sir Arnold on a pretext so that Beech could look at the documents on the desk.”

Something else? Oh, right the premise of this book is an unofficial police team with women (before they were allowed in the police-force) that deals with cases where e.g. a witness doesn’t want to talk with a man. For that, the men in it were often pretty sexist. And of course, those were different times and having heroes with suspiciously modern views is not the best solution. But neither is not doing anything. The men are happy because women have their “curves in all the right places” or because “being a bodyguard and making arrests appealed to his strong sense of masculinity” and have questionable views on women’s rights, votes for women etc. and all this goes unchallenged. At no point had the characters a serious discussion about this. At no point did I have the impression that the author weighed in on it. She just wrote down what the men said and thought.

ARC received from NetGalley

Murder in Belgravia was an engaging, smart and satisfying post WW1 period mystery. There is a rich cast of characters and lots of period detail regarding women's employment and social stratification without any trace of tedium.

So often in light mysteries it feels like the author periodically inserts paragraphs (or pages) from Wikipedia to add authenticity or period detail---there was none of this here. The characters rang true and post-war London felt seedy in the right places and bursting with promise in others.

I loved this book and hope that the author will bring these fabulous characters together for many more adventures.

Note: this review will simultaneously be posted on GoodReads.

Murder in Belgravia by Lynn Brittney is set in London during WWI, a time period of great interest for many reasons.

The Great War was in progress and the social landscape was changing: drugs like cocaine and heroin were available at the local pharmacy; the male population was depleted as men enlisted or were conscripted; the zeppelin raids in 1915; women were needed in areas other than domestic service and were working in factories, wearing trousers, cutting their hair, and learning to drive; suffragettes were still hoping for the vote, but suspended many of their political activities and offered their services to the government; only a small number of women were able to receive higher education, but the war increased the need for more women in fields that required more disciplined learning.

The book is a murder mystery that touches on all of the above, as well as examining the difficulty for many in accepting these rapid changes. Today, approximately 100 years later, traditional society struggles to accept the many changes that result from technology.

Briefly, Chief Inspector Peter Beech finds himself investigating the murder of Lord Murcheson. Murcheson's grievously injured wife has confessed to killing her husband, but questions arise as to whether or not her life-threatening injuries would have made it possible.

Beech is given permission to assemble an unusual and off-the-record team that includes two women to pursue the Murcheson case.

In spite of the tawdry elements of the case, the novel has an almost Pollyana-ish group of characters who are more open-minded than would have been typical of the time. Beech's assembled team includes a retired policeman summoned back because of the loss of man power during the war, a young policeman who was wounded during the war, a female doctor, and a woman who studied law. All of the characters are dedicated to solving the murder and are interested in making positive changes.

In the midst of a sordid case that includes murder, prostitution (both male and female), and drugs, the assembled team represent the best of humanity. So...the novel deals with some of the most degraded offenses, but lightens up because of the respectable and decent members of the team. It is a contrast between the terrible reality of the social ills faced and the virtual goodness of the team. This contrast between reality and wishful thinking keeps the novel a step below what it could have been.

The plot is intriguing and held my interest, and the characters are likable, if a bit perfect.

Although the research is obvious, there is no bibliography or list of sources. This may simply be that my copy is an ARC. Nevertheless, I enjoyed Murder in Belgravia and look forward to the next in the series.
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Cocaine and heroin were available in pharmacies for almost every possible problem from helping babies to sleep, hay fever treatments, pain relief, etc.

Read in December; review scheduled for March 2018.

NetGalley/Mirror Books

Historical Mystery/WWI. March 15, 2018. Print length: 211 pages.

Absolutely amazing I loved this book from the first page to the last and was sad to come to the end. Set in London during 1915 the author has brilliantly combined fiction and fact to produce a brilliant detective story, loved the twists and turns and loved the characters each one with one uniques skills. Can't wait for the next one in the series well done to the author .

Fascinating insights into life on the Home Front in Britain during WW1 are to be had in this, the first in a projected series of historical mystery novels. It is set in London in 1915 and features a unique group of people brought together by Chief Inspector Peter Beech to investigate the killing of Lord Murcheson,

Included in the group are Dr Caroline Allardyce, Constable Billy Rigsby, Arthur Tollman, formerly of the Special Branch, and the Hon. Victoria Ellingham.

The investigation brings them in contact with a cross-section of people from all walks of life. The aristocracy of Belgravia and the workers of Hoxton, drug dealers and gang leaders, brothel keepers and rent boys, all feature.

The historical setting is well done and the author conveys a wealth of interesting detail without overwhelming the story.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher, Mirror Books for the digital ARC.

Great beginning to what I hope is a new series ! Intriguing characters and a gritty historical look at London.