Very interesting read about an Australian character I previously knew nothing about, who had an affair with King George prior to him marrying Elizabeth Parker Bowles. Set during the world wars, it provides an insight into what life was like during the period, and how much people appeared to try to make the most out of life despite the trying times.
Sheila wedded earls and barons, befriended literary figures and movie stars, bedded a future king, was feted by London and New York society for forty years and when she died was a Russian princess.Vivacious, confident and striking, Sheila Chisholm met her first husband, Francis Edward Scudamore St Clair-Erskine, a first lieutenant and son of the 5th Earl of Rosslyn, when she went to Egypt during the Great War to nurse her brother. Arriving in London as a young married woman, the world was at her feet - and she enjoyed it immensely. Edward, Prince of Wales, called her 'a divine…
Based on South Australia's first police officer, Kate Cocks, it is a crime story set during WWI and is a fictionalised account but based on research about the period in which it is set. Being set in Adelaide, my home town, one can relate to the different places, streets and characters of the time. Very much unlike the book 'Sheila', there is not a lot of partying going on and scandalous affairs in Adelaide like there is in London during WWI and beyond! If only the people of Adelaide knew what the Royals were really up to!
Summer, Adelaide, 1917. The impeccably dressed Miss Kate Cocks might look more like a schoolmistress than a policewoman, but don't let that fool you. She's a household name, wrangling wayward husbands into repentance, seeing through deceptive clairvoyants, and rescuing young women (whether they like it or not) with the help of a five-foot cane and her sassy junior constable, Ethel Bromley.
When shop assistant Dora Black is found dead on a city beach, Miss Cocks and Ethel are ordered to stay out of the investigation and leave it to the men. But when Dora's workmate goes missing soon after, the…
I liked this crime fiction book about a small town police officer, because it is relatable as it is set in the mid-North of Adelaide, a place that I often visit. It was sometimes a bit slow to get going with lots of characters to establish the social fabric, but seems quite realistic and the scenery / landscape setting is well described. I would like to see these books made into a series.
*** LONGLISTED FOR THE CWA GOLD DAGGER AWARD *** *** A SUNDAY TIMES CRIME PICK OF THE MONTH ***
'A scorchingly good novel' - MICHAEL ROBOTHAM
'Disher is the gold standard for rural noir' - CHRIS HAMMER
'An utterly compelling mystery with rare heart and humanity' - DERVLA MCTIERNAN ________________________________________
AN ACT OF INEXPLICABLE CRUELTY. A FAMILY DESTROYED.
Constable Paul Hirschhausen runs a one-cop station in the dry farming country south of the Flinders Ranges. He's still new in town but his community work - welfare checks and a light touch - is starting to pay off. Now Christmas is…
At the end of the First World War, Alexander Newland Lee was accused of poisoning his wife and three children.
Born at World’s End, Lee was a destitute labourer who severely injured his hand in a farm accident. Recovering at The Willows Hospital in the Barossa Valley, he fell in love with nurse Dolly Scholz, an attractive young woman of Prussian-German descent. The setting was post World War I, a time when her community was ostracised.
When Lee was arrested for murder at Rhynie and put on trial, the case attracted strong interest from members of the community. They crawled over the gates of the Supreme Court to try to get a seat in the public gallery and a glimpse of the accused. It was deemed one of the most sensational criminal cases in South Australian history, and people waited outside the court in their hundreds to learn of Lee’s fate.
Strangely, a generation earlier, his Auntie Martha Needle, known as ‘The Richmond Poisoner,’ was hanged in the Old Melbourne Gaol for a similar crime. Did Lee know about his infamous Auntie?
Alexander always maintained his innocence, claiming that his wife had committed the crimes.
Lee's death sentence led to the first protest against capital punishment in South Australia, in what the press dubbed a ‘Proposed Execution Holiday.’ The date of the hanging was set for 15 July 1920, the day H.R.H. Prince of Wales was visiting the state.
This story explores Lee’s crimes and trial set amidst the post WWI social context.
