Alison Goodman’s Regency mystery, The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies, starts out a little slow for me, but once it picked up speed, the characters and difficult cases keeps the story moving. Goodman’s notes say she’s inspired by Georgette Heyer’s Regency novels. This one takes the best of those stories, ages the characters, while adding mystery and adventure. Get past the opening, and it’s fun.
Lady Augusta Colebrook (Gus) is forty-two. At that age, she and her twin sister, Julia, are definitely spinsters. They’re lucky they have their own income, their own household, and are not dependent on their brother, the Earl of Duffield. But, despite their status in society, Gus is bored. After a successful retrieval of letters for a friend threatened with blackmail, Gus is inspired. Why shouldn’t she and Julia have adventures while helping other women out of difficulties?
Julia isn’t quite as adventurous as Gus. In fact, she has some health problems. But, she isn’t going to let Gus take on the world’s problems all by herself. Julia will go along, but their butler, Weatherly, overhears their plans, and insists that he’ll accompany them. Their first case involves a woman being held hostage by her husband. Lady Carolne Thorne hasn’t had children, and now she fears her husband intends to kill her. Her relatives are worried, and Gus is determined to free her and turn her over to her relatives for safety. But, plans don’t go exactly as Gus expected. On the way to the Thornes’, their carriage is attacked by highwaymen. Gus shoots and injures one of them. It’s Julia who recognizes him as Lord Evan Belford who was convicted of murder in a duel twenty years earlier and exiled to Australia. Gus sees his injury as a way into the Thornes’ house. When the injured Lord Evan overhears their plans, he insists in helping the twins execute the plot to save Lady Caroline.
One successful case leads to another for the two sisters. But, both women know Lord Evan is a fugitive. Gus isn’t convinced he actually is responsible for the death twenty years ago. Now that he’s helped them in one case, she plans to investigate the past, and help the handsome highwayman escape the law.
Gus and Julia are both strong-willed in their own ways, but they’re devoted to each other, and communicate as only twins can. Despite her health, Julia insists on helping Gus in her adventures. And, they now have a new partner, Lord Evan, who they call on for a special case. And, then he asks Gus to help him extricate his sister from a madhouse.
Goodman’s characters are wonderful. They do feel as if they stepped out of the pages of a Georgette Heyer novel, but Goodman goes so much further by introducing women who are considered over-the-hill as the main characters, along with a man who was exiled because of a duel. The cases the sisters become involved in involve the social and political issues of the time – women who are legally property of their husbands after marriage, young girls kidnapped for brothels, women consigned to madhouses. The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies is an entertaining introduction to Regency England with mystery and a little romance. Both are to be continued in the next book.
Alison Goodman’s website is https://www.alisongoodman.com.au/
The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies by Alison Goodman. Berkley Prime Crime, 2023. ISBN 9780593440810 (paperback), 464p.
FTC Full Disclosure – I read a galley from NetGalley to review for a journal.
