Review: MURDER ON NORTH TERRACE, Lainie Anderson

• 
  this edition published by Hachette Australia 2025
  
• ISBN 978-0-7336-5209-7
• 325 pages
• A Petticoat Police Mystery Book 2 

Synopsis (publisher)

The indomitable Miss Cocks and Ethel Bromley return for Book Two in the bestselling and charmingly cosy Petticoat Police Mystery Series, inspired by one of Australia's first policewomen.

Adelaide, September 1917. Six months after solving the Dora Black case, Kate Cocks and Ethel Bromley are back walking the beat. The city is unsettled. Winter won't leave. Soldiers are returning from the Front with broken bodies and troubled souls. And now a powerful board governor has been found dead in the Art Gallery - dumped beneath a scandalous nude painting that has attracted both pious outrage and record crowds.

When Ethel receives an anonymous tip, she's elated at being seconded to the Detective Branch. The murder goes to the heart of Adelaide's elite, where this society girl is in her element. Miss Cocks is left grappling with six o'clock swills, shadows in alleyways and a brutal assault on a schoolgirl. She needs Ethel to catch her killer, and quickly.

Alas, murder in Adelaide is never a simple affair . . .

Inspired by the true story of Australia's pioneering policewoman, Kate Cocks. 

My Take

Historical crime fiction set at home is always attractive, and this one was worth the read. 1917. The first flush of World War I is over. 300 hundred wounded soldiers have returned and a popular army captain is busy drumming up another 150 recruits for South Australia's 10th Battalion. Murders are rare in Adelaide and then the Curator of the Art Gallery is murdered, throat cut, beneath a painting that has attracted a lot of attention. Kate Cox loses her assistant to the Adelaide Detective force, but the investigation is very slow.

The historical elements and settings of the story are credible and the characters strike home. 

My rating: 4.5

I've also read 4.4, THE DEATH OF DORA BLACK  

Review: THE DEATH OF DORA BLACK, Lainie Anderson

• 
  This edition available as an e-book on Amazon
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0CX9LRBCB
  
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Hachette Australia (August 28, 2024)
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 321 pages
• Petticoat Police Mystery #1
  

Synopsis (Amazon) 

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 women suspect something sinister, and determine to take matters into their own hands. After all, who knows Adelaide better than the indomitable Miss Cocks?

*In 1915, Fanny Kate Boadicea Cocks became the first policewoman in the British Empire employed on the same salary as men. This novel is a rich exploration of that little-known chapter of Australian history.*

My Take

From all accounts Kate Cocks was a remarkable woman. This book, fictionalised history set in Adelaide mid way through World War 1, brings her to life and gives readers a chance to appreciate her achievements. If you live in Adelaide there are landmarks you will recognise, and some that have disappeared from our landscape.

The novel is essentially a police procedural, very readable, with credible scenarios. 

The real Kate Cocks.

My rating: 4.4

About the Author
In early 2024 I completed a PhD with the University of South Australia, exploring the life of South Australia's Kate Cocks. In 1915 she became the first policewoman in the British Empire employed on the same salary and with the same powers of arrest as men. Here's a piece I wrote about her legacy for The Conversation.  As part of my PhD I have also written a historical murder mystery inspired by Kate's extraordinary life and some of the cracking cases she solved. The Death of Dora Black will be released by Hachette Australia in August 2024.

see more