Singapore Sapphire

I loved Alison Stuart's Singapore Sapphire. It is the first book in a historical mystery series featuring amateur sleuth Harriet Gordon. Harriet teams up with Inspector Robert Curran of the Straits Settlement Police Force's Detective Unit to solve crimes on Singapore's island. Harriet's personal story is tragic. Her husband and son died of typhoid fever in India where her husband was stationed. Her return to England did not go smoothly. Harriet became involved in the suffragette movement and was jailed for several months. With her move to Singapore in 1910 to work beside her brother, Rev. Julian Edwards, at the religious school he runs, Harriet finds a place where she can use her smarts and still be a member in good standing of her elite place in society.

Harriet cannot be paid for her work at St. Thomas Church of England Prep School for Boys because she is a woman. In order to earn some money, Harriet places an ad in the local paper offering her services as a typist. Sir Oswald Newbold sees the ad and quickly contacts Harriet. With just one day of work for Sir Oswald completed, Harriet returns to his home to pick up her typewriter. What she finds is unsettling. Sir Oswald is dead with an antique knife stuck in his body. Inspector Curran arrives at the scene after being notified by Harriet's wallah, Aziz, that a crime has been committed at Sir Oswald's home. Soon thereafter a second person is found dead. Curran thinks the two crimes are connected but has no evidence to prove his theory.

The partnership between Harriet and Curran seemed realistic for the time period. Harriet's "sleuthing" consisted of asking Curran pointed questions about the crime that gave him insight on where the investigation should go. Her sleuthing may change form in future books in the series but for now, Harriet is able to help in the investigation in a way that maintains the traditional role of women in the early twentieth-century. Given Harriet's suffragette leanings, I would expect that she challenges society by taking a more active role in the future. For now, the reader has a first rate mystery to enjoy and savor.