Beverly Armento grew up during the 1940s / 1950s; the eldest of four children. She spent her childhood caring for her blind mother – a selfish, mentally ill and abusive woman. Beatings, frequent moves, poverty, deplorable living conditions, an absent father and a mother’s paranoid delusions took center stage in Beverly’s life for decades.
There’s nothing like a brisk-paced, engrossing mystery – especially one with historical context. The Unveiling of Polly Forrest grabbed me right from the first page. Set in Marshall, Michigan during the Great Depression, this novel opens with the brutal “accidental” killing of Sam Forrest. When his twenty year old widow, Polly, displays some frivolous behavior following his death, she finds herself at the center stage of public suspicion in their small, gossipy farming community.
A few months after the Carlisle Detective Agency opened its doors, Lady Evelyn and her partner, Hugh, are twiddling their thumbs. The cases are slow to trickle in, leaving the detectives feeling uninspired. So, when Evelyn’s Aunt Louise asks her to join the local chapter of the Women’s Institute, she has no excuse to decline the invitation. Yet what she expects to be a tedious gathering, turns out to be anything but. She meets former suffragettes and outspoken women, eager for change, forcing Evelyn to reexamine her own prejudices. A decidedly less welcome surprise is the