‘A Killing Near Waterloo Station’ by Lynn Brittney

Published by Iris Books,
13 December 2023.
ISBN: 978-1-907147-87-6 (PB)

The story is set in London in 1915 and follows the work of the Mayfair 100 team. This is a team that had been put together by Chief Inspector Beech early in the First World War and its brief was to undertake the sort of investigations that ordinary policemen could not successfully deal with. Most of the team are women, some of them well-born and living in Mayfair at the home of Lady Maud Winterborne, whose aristocratic connections and willingness to investigate have proved very valuable. The younger women are all pioneers in female emancipation; they include Victoria, who has received legal training although women were not allowed to practice law; Caroline, a doctor; and Mabel a pharmacist who has Forensic and photographic skills, Caroline and Mabel work at the Women’s Hospital in Euston.

As well as Beech, the women are supported by two male police officers, Detective Sergeant Arthur Tollman who is around retirement age and Constable Billy Rigsby. Like Beech, Billy has been invalided out of the army. Often investigations require going undercover in situations in which the ladies would be too conspicuous and there are two quick-witted working-class women who undertake these tasks, Billy’s mother, Elsie, and his aunt, Sissy.

When the Germans execute Edith Cavell for spying, many British people are outraged that they should treat a middle-class nurse in such a way. The women of the Mayfair 100 team are saddened by Nurse Cavell’s death and inclined to share the public’s outrage until Beech points out that anyone who is captured as a spy must expect to suffer the same penalty, whether man or woman, and several of the younger Mayfair 100 women are forced to accept the truth of this and swallow bitter pill of equality.

However, they are all appalled when there are riots in the streets as vicious thugs target women of foreign extraction, most of whom are hard-working citizens whose menfolk have been interned because of their German or Austrian heritage. Tollman and Billy are on duty when a mob attacks the shop belonging to the interned father of Mattie Grunwald, damaging the shop and injuring Mattie. They disperse the mob and rescue Mattie, and Billy takes her to stay with his mother and aunt. Billy and Mattie hit it off immediately and he begins to hope that he has met a girl who is indifferent to his war-scarred face and maimed hand.

The Mayfair team are given a new case to investigate when two women are abducted during a Zeppelin raid and a guard is injured. For some reason the two women had insisted on travelling in the Guards Van with pigeons who were being returned from France because they were unwell. When Caroline and Mabel go to forensically examine the Guards Van they find that the unfortunate pigeons are dead and Mabel’s quick reflexes save them from danger when she detects traces of chloroform. The team work to discover the identity of the two young women, one English and the other foreign, and their current whereabouts. Yet again Elsie and Sissy prove their value to the team as they obtain employment cleaning railway carriages and are instrumental in discovering the identity of one of the missing women.

As the investigation continues the team has to manage without Beech’s guiding hand as he is also involved in investigating a mysterious silver robbery and becomes deeply involved with an alluring and beautiful foreign noblewoman. As the Mayfair 100 teamwork with the River Police they make a disturbing discovery and realise they are involved in the perilous world of spies and military secrets.

A Killing near Waterloo Station is the fifth book in the series featuring the Mayfair 100. It is a superbly researched novel which explores some of the lesser-known aspects of the First World War. The characters are engaging, and the plot is complex and well-constructed. This is a fascinating read, a page turner, which I recommend.
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Reviewer: Carol Westron

Lynn Brittney has fifty-two plays, books (fiction and non-fiction), and foreign translations of her books registered for PLR. She began novel-writing in 2005 and the first book in her Nathan Fox Elizabethan spy trilogy was nominated for the Waterstones and Brandford Boase Prize. In 2016 she created the Mayfair 100 series, set in WW1. There are now five books in the series. 

www.lynnbrittney.com

Carol Westron is a successful author and a Creative Writing teacher.  Her crime novels are set both in contemporary and Victorian times.  Her first book The Terminal Velocity of Cats was published in 2013. Since then, she has since written 7 further mysteries. Carol recently gave an interview to Mystery People. To read the interview click on the link below. 

https://promotingcrime.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/carol-westron.html www.carolwestron.com
http://carolwestron.blogspot.co.uk/

To read a review of Carol latest book click on the title
Death and the Dancing Snowman