An Austin Starr Mystery set in Canada, this tale features
a lady Texan with a husband and child - her friend is the
Mounties' prime suspect in the murder of a graduate
student. The University of British Columbia seems an
unlikely place for murder, but a women's lib meeting was
involved, drawing politics into the sphere of RAINY DAY
WOMEN.
The date is 1969 and the Moon landing has just successfully
occurred. Austin and her husband David are both students;
in David's case he is avoiding the Vietnam draft. Bob Dylan
is playing on the radio, and at Woodstock. Against this
backdrop, the poisoning of one student in a chemistry lab,
Shona, seems a minor issue; probably accidental, Austin
tells herself. Larissa is delighted to see Austin and her
little boy Wyatt in Vancouver. Larissa's father, Professor
Klimenko, a Russian lecturer, is also pleased, though
Austin claims she is only there to provide moral support.
The setting is well realised with frequent intervals of
rain in Vancouver, IBM typewriters, and a newly released
book called THE EDIBLE WOMAN by Margaret Atwood. Some men
in science believe women have no place in a lab - unless
they are typing or making tea. This seems like a century
away from modern life, with women PhDs in The Big Bang
Theory, but as someone who has worked in more than one male-
dominated job I can assure today's graduates that the
change happened fast.
Some of the young men in Shona's lab felt threatened by an
intelligent woman in their midst, and putting down her
ideas was just one way they expressed their inadequacy. But
that's not a motive to murder the woman, is it? The wide
variety of women at the liberation meeting astonishes even
well-travelled Austin. Could one of them have had a
personal issue with the dead woman? And then a second death
occurs - coincidence?
Writing this from the point of view of a devoted wife and
mother is deliciously ironic, so Kay Kendall has clearly
put a great deal of thought into her creation. With both
Russian and Jewish families included, the story feels well-
rounded. Kendall lives in Texas and has brought her varied
characters strongly to life in RAINY DAY WOMEN. Read this
smart, stinging mystery for both crime and background, as
it reminds us that the times they were a'changing.
Kay Kendall's RAINY DAY WOMEN is the second book in the Austin Starr Mystery series. In
1969, during the week of the Manson murders and Woodstock, the intrepid amateur sleuth, infant in
tow, flies across the continent to support a friend suspected of murdering women's liberation activists
in Seattle and Vancouver. Then her former CIA trainer warns that an old enemy has contracted a hit on
her. Her anxious husband demands that she give up her quest and fly back to him. How much should
Austin risk when tracking the killer puts her and her baby's life in danger?
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