This sweet historical mystery features a look at the early suffragette movement. In 1912, an eligible young woman investigates a death in LADY RIGHTS A WRONG. Lady Cecilia Bates is spending the summer at her family’s Danby Hall but she makes a trip to London during the adventure.
American heiress Annabel Clarke is staying at the hall as well, the prospective bride for Cecilia's brother Patrick. Annabel often lends her lady’s maid Jane Hughes, who is English but worked in America, to assist Cecilia. The three young women are interested in attending a speech in the village by Mrs Amelia Price, who is staying at Primrose Cottage. Mrs. Price leads the growing Woman’s Suffrage Union. There are many voices dissenting, of course, not all male. Some well-established matrons claim that a woman can get her way in most matters if she acts carefully. Men are more rowdy or outspoken in their disdain at the thought of votes for women. The day after the speech, Mrs. Price is found dead in the cottage. She has fallen down the stairs during the night – but was it accidental?
Cecilia enjoys comparative freedom in the village, not requiring a maid to go everywhere, and is able to carry her handsome and clever cat Jack around in a basket. There’s not a lot to ease her boredom, beyond organising the annual church fair, so she easily fits in enquiries in the guise of conversation with everyone. Historical touches include a bicycle which gives women a chance to travel locally without needing a horse and groom or a car and driver. While she still has to cope with a long skirt, the bicycle starts offering movement to Cecilia. She has to go accompanied by another lady to London, of course, and she manages to see some of the mildly scandalous Bohemian lifestyle.
The Manor Cat Mystery Series began with Lady Takes The Case. This isn’t a romance series, but it’s inevitable that such women are being prepared for marriage. The local vicar Mr. Brown, who seems very pleasant, is a newcomer and in want of a wife, so that’s one prospect. There are also men in grander positions who might want to ally themselves with Cecilia’s family, especially if Annabel’s American money is added to the coffers. I expect this series could safely add more books, characters and intrigue, especially in the run-up to what was known as the Kaiser’s War. Personally, I would keep coming back to meet Jack again, as he enlivens scenes, sniffs out clues, and plays with ribbons just as cats do. Eliza Casey provides a conversational, touching and enlightening background to the mystery in LADY RIGHTS A WRONG.
As the suffragette movement sweeps England in 1912, Lady Cecilia Bates wants to march but ends up trailing a killer instead in the latest entry to the Manor Cat Mysteries.
Lady Cecilia of Danby Hall feels adrift. She couldn’t be less interested in helping to plan the church's upcoming bazaar. Instead, what excites her most is the Woman’s Suffrage Union meeting she has just attended.
Inspired by the famous and charismatic leader of the group, Mrs. Amelia Price, Cecilia is eager to join the Union—if she can hide it from her parents, that is. But when Mrs. Price is found dead at the foot of the stairs of her home, her Votes for Women sash torn away, Cecilia knows she must attend to a more urgent matter: finding the killer. With the help of her lady’s maid Jane and intelligent cat Jack, she hopes to play her part in earning women’s equality by stopping the Union’s dangerous foe.
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