I think I’ve mentioned before that I really enjoy mysteries that are cozy and set in the early 1900s. So I decided to try a new series, which is always very exciting, but also a bit daunting: what if you waste your time getting to know a whole new setting and a bunch of characters, when you could’ve been reading something much better? It’s a gamble and unfortunately I think I lost when I read Dying in the Wool by Frances Brody.
So why shouldn’t I take on a difficult task and accept money?
I seriously considered not finishing this book.
I think it says a lot that I can remember surprisingly little about the characters or the plot of Dying in the Wool, and it’s been just a couple of days since I finished reading it.
The amateur sleuth, Kate Shackleton, sounded like an interesting character. Widowed after the war, she becomes an amateur sleuth when she finds others who have been missing since the war. In the book she is contacted by her friend who asks Kate to take on her first paid job and find the friend’s missing father, a wealthy mill owner who disappeared in mysterious circumstances (if I remember correctly). And then there is a lot of talk about the mill work, many characters are introduced who are not that memorable and the story has a very slow pace. There is a “side-kick”, an ex-police officer who helps Kate to solve the mystery but I can’t remember learning much about him either. Then there are a couple of additional murders of some of the unmemorable characters and a suspicious affair of the widow and the village doctor (maybe…?). And in the end the solution to the mystery wasn’t that much of a surprise, unfortunately.
The book just took a very long time to get really started and sadly none of the characters sparked any interest in me. It’s a bummer, because I really was looking forward to getting myself a new trusty amateur sleuth series to enjoy and that’s not happening with this series, unless someone convinces me that the second Kate Shackleton mystery is much better that this first one. 😦
By the way, my favorite amateur sleuth mysteries, set in the early 1900s, are Royal Spyness series and Phryne Fisher series, and of course all those lovely Agatha Christie books.
Dying in the Wool fills these prompts from the two Reading Challenges I’m doing:
The book depicts life in the countryside ( Helmet Reading Challenge)
The setting of the book is in a peaceful Yorkshire village
A book set in the 1920s (Popsugar Reading Challenge)
1920s Great Britain is usually an intriguing setting for a book
