I’ve gone back to the beginning to read Dying in the Wool, first in the 1920s Kate Shackleton crime series by Frances Brody. What a joy it is to meet Kate for the first time, as the author intended. I read this novel quickly over a weekend, jealous of distractions that drew me away from my library book. Unlike most first books in what become long-running series, Dying in the Wool starts quickly and gets to the point. A man disappeared seven years ago and his soon-to-be-wed daughter, convinced he ran away to start a new life, asks former VAD colleague Kate to discover his whereabouts so he can walk her down the aisle at her wedding. Widow Kate, her husband Gerald died in the Great War, has become accomplished at solving the mysteries of missing soldiers. But Joshua Braithwaite is the wealthy owner and master of a Yorkshire mill, not a man lost in the horror of battle. Staying with the Braithwaite family, and meeting Joshua’s colleagues and workforce at the mill, present Kate with new challenges and new investigative territory. This is not simply a matter of telling a wife or daughter that a man was killed in action, this is possibly about family secrets, fraud and murder. Kate soon finds herself the subject of gossip in Bridgestead village, and begins to start at moving shadows.
Brody cleverly tells us Kate’s background with Gerald in parallel to her investigations in the Braithwaite case, avoiding the ‘exposition dumps’ that can happen in the first of a series. Already familiar with some of the later books, I was pleased to meet for the first time Kate’s housekeeper Mrs Sugden and private detective Mr Sykes. Seeing Mrs Sugden fussing over Kate’s meals, and Kate encouraging Mr Sykes to get behind the wheel of her motor car for the first time, made me smile. The final quarter of the book moves quickly and, with only a few pages, left there are further twists and turns to challenge Kate’s working theory.
A well-researched and written novel that made me want to start the second book in the series straight away. The textile industry is a fertile setting for a murder mystery and Brody cleverly uses the mill and its workforce, management and working class, the weaving techniques and business finances to good effect. Kate, a wealthy young woman with her own motor car, is noticed by everyone in the mill village where workers and their bosses know everyone and there are few secrets. Or are there?
Enjoyable.

Try the #FirstPara of DYING IN THE WOOL.

Read my reviews of these other Kate Shackleton novels:-
A DEATH IN THE DALES #7KATESHACKLETON
A SNAPSHOT OF MURDER #10KATESHACKLETON
DEATH AND THE BREWERY QUEEN #12KATESHACKLETON
A MANSION FOR MURDER #13KATESHACKLETON

If you like this, try:-
‘An Unsuitable Job for a Woman’ by PD James
‘Fortune Favours the Dead’ by Stephen Spotswood
‘The Blind Man of Seville’ by Robert Wilson

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview DYING IN THE WOOL by @FrancesBrody https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-7y6 via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:-