Review: Dorcas Dene, Detective

Dorcas Dene, Detective by George Robert Sims
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An early "lady detective," who was formerly an actress, so she's amazing at disguises. Her Watson (whose name is Saxon) is a sometime theatrical producer who knew her in her acting days, and becomes a friend of hers and her (blind) husband's. I did suspect that he was a little in love with her, though, as a decent fellow and a friend of the couple, he didn't do or say anything about it.

The big flaw of the stories is that they tend to tell us the solution rather than showing us how it was reached sometimes, though this isn't a universal fault. The very-end-of-the-19th-century setting is interesting (the more so because, having read a few books set in the following decade, I was amazed how quickly things changed). The detective is competent and clever, the Watson admiring and not up to much in terms of figuring out mysteries, but a good man to have nearby in case any action becomes required, and doesn't seem to have any difficulty finding time to assist the detective. In other words, he's a classic Watson - let's remember, Sherlock Holmes had debuted only ten years earlier.

Mrs. Dene takes a pragmatic view of the sometimes scandalous lives of the people she investigates, and is always professional and capable. An enjoyable set of stories, not among the greats, but better than plenty of other now-obscure classic mysteries, many of which deserve their obscurity.

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