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Full title:
The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective: Secrets and Lies in the Golden Age of Crime
by Susannah Stapleton
I suppose due to cookies nothing is ever entirely random on the internet, but I came across an online review for this book while I was searching for something completely different. Naturally it caught my eye though, being a fan of Sherlock Holmes and middle-aged women having adventures.
Having read the review, I then immediately and enthusiastically put my name down for getting the book from my local library. But I admit I afterwards had to go back to the review to try and make sense of exactly what it was I would be getting. I wasn’t totally clear if it was a biography, or a novel presented in the form of a biography. I wasn’t sure whether Maud West had existed or not.
It is a biography but it’s a biography told in an unusual form. Susannah Stapleton is a professional historical researcher and a fan of detective stories. She’d given herself the challenge of solving her own mystery—whether there had ever actually been a female private detective in the 'golden age of crime'. And once she’d found the basic evidence for the existence of Maud West, she’d then set herself to finding out more about her life.
So the book really is in the form of a detective story as we follow Stapleton’s real-life investigations. It’s perhaps not the usual description for a biography but the book is a real page turner—you’re often left on a cliffhanger at the end of a chapter, wondering what’s going to turn up next. During her inquiries, Stapleton has the added task of trying to separate fact from fiction. Among other things, Miss West was her own Watson—writing heavily fictionalised mini-short stories about her adventures. Some of these are included in the book in between the chapters. And not every detail of Miss West’s life can now be recovered, though Stapleton sometimes fills in the gaps with some intriguing and convincing hypotheses.
But this is not just Maud West’s story. Some time ago I tried to find information about private detectives in the Victorian and Edwardian eras for a linkspam on the Sherlock60 comm. There was frustratingly little online. This book gives a greatly more detailed look at private detectives—both male and female—in the early part of the twentieth century, and is also a fascinating look at that time period in general.
It’s an entertaining read but it’s not all lighthearted. Maud West had more to cope with in her personal life than Holmes ever did. There are references to murders and one particularly distressing suicide. But on the whole it’s such an uplifting book, written with intelligence and affection. Towards the end the detective aspect falls away a little. Susannah Stapleton gets as close to the real Maud West as she’s ever likely to and we’re left just with one woman regarding another with sympathy and admiration.
At the end of the ‘story’ I had a real lump in my throat for Maud West—an ordinary and extraordinary woman.
The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective: Secrets and Lies in the Golden Age of Crime
by Susannah Stapleton
I suppose due to cookies nothing is ever entirely random on the internet, but I came across an online review for this book while I was searching for something completely different. Naturally it caught my eye though, being a fan of Sherlock Holmes and middle-aged women having adventures.
Having read the review, I then immediately and enthusiastically put my name down for getting the book from my local library. But I admit I afterwards had to go back to the review to try and make sense of exactly what it was I would be getting. I wasn’t totally clear if it was a biography, or a novel presented in the form of a biography. I wasn’t sure whether Maud West had existed or not.
It is a biography but it’s a biography told in an unusual form. Susannah Stapleton is a professional historical researcher and a fan of detective stories. She’d given herself the challenge of solving her own mystery—whether there had ever actually been a female private detective in the 'golden age of crime'. And once she’d found the basic evidence for the existence of Maud West, she’d then set herself to finding out more about her life.
So the book really is in the form of a detective story as we follow Stapleton’s real-life investigations. It’s perhaps not the usual description for a biography but the book is a real page turner—you’re often left on a cliffhanger at the end of a chapter, wondering what’s going to turn up next. During her inquiries, Stapleton has the added task of trying to separate fact from fiction. Among other things, Miss West was her own Watson—writing heavily fictionalised mini-short stories about her adventures. Some of these are included in the book in between the chapters. And not every detail of Miss West’s life can now be recovered, though Stapleton sometimes fills in the gaps with some intriguing and convincing hypotheses.
But this is not just Maud West’s story. Some time ago I tried to find information about private detectives in the Victorian and Edwardian eras for a linkspam on the Sherlock60 comm. There was frustratingly little online. This book gives a greatly more detailed look at private detectives—both male and female—in the early part of the twentieth century, and is also a fascinating look at that time period in general.
It’s an entertaining read but it’s not all lighthearted. Maud West had more to cope with in her personal life than Holmes ever did. There are references to murders and one particularly distressing suicide. But on the whole it’s such an uplifting book, written with intelligence and affection. Towards the end the detective aspect falls away a little. Susannah Stapleton gets as close to the real Maud West as she’s ever likely to and we’re left just with one woman regarding another with sympathy and admiration.
At the end of the ‘story’ I had a real lump in my throat for Maud West—an ordinary and extraordinary woman.
