A Death in Chelsea: A Mayfair 100 Mystery

It’s 1915 and England is in the midst of World War I. Although women are being employed in jobs normally performed by men, the higher reaches of professions and forces remain strictly male. Except, that is, for Chief Inspector Beech’s special team of amateur female detectives. Operating below the radar, they tackle cases for which their feminine skills may be especially suited. One such case is the apparent suicide in Chelsea of Lady Adeline Treborne. Her mother insists her daughter was murdered, and Beech and his team are called in to investigate. Lady Adeline, it turns out, was a well-known and vicious society commentator for a London newspaper. Her columns revealed acutely embarrassing secrets about some of society’s most prominent figures. Plenty of suspects there. And how did she get her scuttlebutt? That, though, is not the only puzzle thrown up by Lady Adeline’s death. The investigators uncover a blackmailing scheme, fraud, drug addiction, and much darker crimes—baby-farming and murder—before they find the truth. The ladies in Beech’s team are perhaps too plucky, too cheerful, and too caring to be really interesting, and the plot moves along at a labored pace rather than a swift sprint, but the surprising interactions among the various suspects make A Death in Chelsea an enjoyable read.