Murder Offstage: A Posie Parker Mystery (The Posie Parker Mystery Series Book 1) Kindle Edition by L.B. Hathaway (Whitehaven Man Press London)

This is my first time reading a Posie Parker mystery, although I see that there are four entries in the series. Since this one was fun and moderately priced, I'll be reading more. However, the set-up of the main character of the series isn't especially unique. This Posie Parker is like a less angst-ridden Maisie Dobbs of Winspear's series set in about the same time period.

Posie is a young woman whose brother and fiance were both killed in the Great War. Posie herself was an ambulance driver during the war and now, after the death of her rector father, is alone in the world and decides to set up a private investigation agency on her own. Unlike in the Maisie Dobbs stories, here we don't spend much time at all worrying or brooding over traumatic events of the war. The characters here are fairly interesting and likeable but not drawn very deeply.

But that's OK b/c it makes for a breezy, fast, escape read. Fine to take you away for an hour or two of fluff in your life. In this first episode of Posie's adventures, she isn't being very successful at all with her agency and is thinking to give it up until the day a man walks in and offers his son Len as a partner for her, since he, the father, is retiring from their investigative business. Len, the son, is a successful "shadower" but needs a better office in a better location. Posie needs business, so they collaborate.

Well, this story brings Posie into the investigation of murders, a stolen diamond ring with a curse on it, mysterious people involved in a London theater, an underground nightclub that few know the location of but has hundreds of clients at night (Go figure that one out, if you can), international crime, and even cat abduction. There's also a very low-key, budding romance between Len and Posie.

As I said before, this is enjoyable as escape fiction. Don't analyze the mystery and facts within too closely and don't read this as being 100% historically accurate to the time period and you'll have a lot of fun. I'm off to read the second story.