I wanted this book after reading ‘Red Pottage’ – I was
hankering after more New Women and Victorian lushness and thought it would hit
the spot. Naturally therefore I didn’t pick it up for at least a month by which
time the mood had gone. ‘Red Pottage’ is a seasonal sort of book, a lot of the
action takes place in autumn against a backdrop of golden leaves and crisp
evenings finishing up in a snow flurry. It was very evocative back in October
but that mood has passed now, fortunately I’m all about the short story at the
moment so haven’t abandoned ‘The Penguin Book of Victorian Women in Crime’ to take
its chance on a shelf somewhere.
I regularly read that short stories don’t sell which just as
regularly surprises me. I love short stories and have numberless collections
and anthologies (by which I mean I can’t be bothered to count them but they may
well run into the hundreds by now); I particularly like anthologies finding
them the perfect travel companions. They’re also just the ticket for this time
of year. Christmas is happening in retail – this is the last pay weekend before
the big day, I’ll find out on Monday if my predictions for an exhaustingly busy
day came true (I have the weekend off and am not sorry to put back the
inevitable cuts, bruises, and frayed temper a few more days).
I find this time of year hard going, it’s physically
demanding in a way which leaves me with very little energy to concentrate on
anything much, and then even when not working there seems so much to prepare,
or finish, or generally take care of before the imaginary full stop that is
Christmas day. Reading fiction is a blessed escape from the (mostly reasonable
but numerous) demands of customers but giving a book the attention it deserves –
well it doesn’t always happen. Shorts are a different matter, a good anthology
is a great way of finding new writers, and if one story in my chosen theme
doesn’t hit the mark I can be pretty sure the next one will.
‘Women in Crime’ is mostly short stories but there is also
an isolated chapter from an Anna Katherine Green novel which makes me long to
read the rest of the book. (Sims has edited an earlier Anna Katherine Green for
penguin; ‘The Leavenworth Case’, it’s on my wish list and I’m hoping someone
takes the hint). Grant Allen’s ‘The Adventure of the Cantankerous Old Lady’ was
very funny (looks like penguin are releasing one of his novels next year – also
on my wish list...). The list of happy discoveries hasn’t ended there.
The other thing I really enjoyed about ‘Women in Crime’ is
how many of them there were, mostly as detectives sometimes as villains. Despite
protestations that the lady detectives (and villains) are still the very models
of femininity it’s somehow encouraging to see the Victorian mind admitting that
women could be more than the angel in the house.
