maybe 2.5* but I am giving this book the benefit of the doubt as I liked the 1924 NYC setting. The mystery was OK but I really liked the riff on S.S. Van Dine... The feminist/suffragette angle was a bit heavy-handed. ( )

1924 and Julia Kidd has arrived in Manhatten to claim her inheritance which is due on her 25th birthday which is in a few weeks. But the death of her friend's sister Naomi Rankin changes events. Julia agrees to prove the death was murder and then she can keep her disputed inheritance.
For me there was not enough mystery in the story, but too much historical fiction. I also didn't like any of the characters, except the slight possibility of Julia's brother Philip Kidd, and then only near the end of the story
A NetGalley Book ( )

Jazz Age Detection
Review of the Lake Union Publishing paperback (2019)

The fiction of the post-World War I era of the 1920-30's has been a long time favourite of mine. It has some of my most loved works by Fitzgerald and Hemingway. It includes the "Golden Age of Crime" by writers such as Christie and Sayers. So a lost generation/jazz-age detection series combined with a love of books and publishing is like catnip to me.

Julia Kydd is an orphaned heiress who was in the process of establishing a small fine print publishing business in England. She is forced to come to New York City to settle an inheritance dispute with her half-brother Philip Kydd. In New York, she becomes entangled in the family affairs of a friend whose suffragette sister has died under suspicious circumstances. In order to aid her friend and to settle the inheritance (on a bet with Philip) Julia sets out to solve the mystery.

Relative Fortunes takes a leisurely amount of time to set everything into place, which is understandable in an origin story. Once the investigation gets rolling and the solution is revealed it becomes a rollercoaster of wild revelations. For the crime reading buff there is a series of easter egg cameo appearances by an upcoming writer named Willard Wright, the real name behind the pseudonym S.S. Van Dine, author of the Philo Vance series of mysteries (1925-1935). Philip Kydd apparently helps the New York City authorities with the solutions to mysterious crimes in his spare time, although he doesn't do much detection in this first book. Wright is planning to use Philip as the basis for his future detective, but it is Julia that seems to be the detecting force in the family.

I thoroughly enjoyed this first work of what is expected to be a continuing series. I am already on to the 2nd book which is called Passing Fancies (2020). It involves a mystery centred around a jazz singer in the Harlem Renaissance.

I discovered the Julia Kydd series through the excellent selection at Toronto's mystery book store Sleuth of Baker Street.

Trivia
Marlowe Benn is actually a pseudonym of writer Margaret L. Benton. ( )

In 1924 Manhattan, women’s suffrage is old news. For sophisticated booklover Julia Kydd, life’s too short for politics. With her cropped hair and penchant for independent living, Julia wants only to launch her own new private press. But as a woman, Julia must fight for what’s hers—including the inheritance her estranged half brother, Philip, has challenged, putting her aspirations in jeopardy. ( )

This was a fantastic debut novel. Very well written, developed characters, and a complex plot based on an extraordinary period in American history: the 1920s, right after women got the right to vote and prohibition was ongoing. I felt the ending had some missed opportunities, and got a bit convoluted, but still satisfying. I’ll be happy to read more from this author. I can only imagine what more experience will do to her clear writing skills. ( )