Have you ever had an author who has written one of your most favorite books and then you discover that the wrote other things? This happened to me quite recently. I love, no LOVE, The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy. Now, I had known that she wrote sequels to that esteemed novel but I have never read them. Firstly because it is exceedingly hard to find them and secondly because I’ve heard they weren’t very good. And then one day, I was wandering through our used bookstore when a title happened to catch my eye. Lady Molly of Scotland Yard I picked it up, hoping for a Victorian mystery and was very pleased with this particular edition’s cover art but then I was blown away by the author. None other than Baroness Orczy herself! I never knew she wrote anything other than the Scarlet Pimpernel books. I latched on to it like it was Sir Percy and I was an aristocrat fleeing the guillotine.
It was a couple months before I could read it. When I added it on Goodreads, I was a little discouraged at some of the negative reviews I got but nothing would sway me in giving it a fair chance. The introduction proved very interesting. The stories are set in 1910-1912-ish Edwardian England and concern Lady Molly, a female detective at Scotland Yard, and her Watson, Mary Granard. Off-hand, one would immediately comment on how unlikely a policewoman in Edwardian London would have been. But, it turns out that Baroness Orczy was just slightly ahead of her time, The first “policewomen” joined Scotland Yard in 1914. I put that in quotations because they were closer to social workers than police officers. They mainly handled cases involving women and children in domestic cases or sexual abuse cases. During the Great War, women went out on patrol to free up men for the draft and helped maintain order. It is true that Lady Molly would never have had as much authority in real life as she did in the stories.
Now, the good. All the stories were entertaining. I enjoyed the Edwardian setting and the female version of the Holmes/Watson team. I also liked that, in some of the stories, Lady Molly solved them when the police could not specifically because she was a woman. Now, that may sound (and may be for all I know) sexist. But I appreciate when authors acknowledge that there can be a difference in understanding between the two sexes, if for no other reason than society coaches us to think differently. She solves cases involving women because she has a deeper understanding of female society than the male police do. She is also very plucky and imperturbable. Ms. Granard, her chronicler, is very nice herself. Incredibly loyal to Lady Molly to the point of even giving up her own career in order to be a full time assistant to Lady Molly.
The bad. Lady Molly does no wrong. Literally. Ever. She is perfect. If she messes up, you can bet it was through no fault of her own. And remember how I said Ms. Granard is loyal? Yeah she’s REALLY loyal. And completely enamored with Lady Molly. Pretty much only ever referring to her as “my dear lady” unless it’s to throw in a stronger term of endearment (“my darling lady”, etc). She does this at least five times per story and, as it just sounds really weird to modern ears, it can get pretty annoying. Unlike Watson who acknowledged Holmes’ faults like insensitivity, unconventionality, and drug addiction, Mary Granard never admits to any fault in her dear lady (oh yeah, that’s because she has none). I would also have liked more insight to Lady Molly’s methods of solving mysteries. The thing I liked about her solving cases by intuition or because she had a deeper understanding of the “female mind” happens too often with not enough reasoning of hard evidence. She also occasionally does blatantly illegal stuff to solve crimes.
The ugly. I think what is most difficult in these stories is the treatment of the lower class. If they are good (which is rather rare in this set), they are idyllic, simple, pastoral, or otherwise quaintly described. If they are bad (more likely the case) they are slovenly, dirty, obstinate. Especially poor women are described as “slatternly”. Foreigners, specifically Italians, are described as dark and secretive and are pretty much always corrupt or morally weak.
So why didn’t the bad or ugly interrupt my enjoyment of this collection of mysteries? Well, for one, the attitudes towards the poor and foreign are sadly not uncommon for writing of that time period. As frustrating as it can be to read, those were unfortunately the commonly held views of that time and I think it unfair to fault Baroness Orczy for them. As to the annoying “my dear lady”s and lack of methods of deduction, well even if it was plainly spelled out, I probably would not have guessed the criminal anyway and those pesky terms of endearment can be glossed over as weird old-fashioned stuff. The stories were very entertaining even if they were rather simplistic and I think that’s what the original intent of the author was. Sometimes, I even got the feeling that she was purposely spoofing detective stories though I have no proof of that other than my “woman’s intuition”. Though maybe, as for LAdy Molly, that’s enough.
