Another STUPID/DUMB Female Lead!!!

Seriously, WHAT is with this trend of basing 1920s, Cozy Mysteries on IMPLAUSIBLY s-t-u-p-i-d, female-aristocrat main characters?!???

As established in this series’s earlier books, Lady Caroline attended a very unusual Finishing School, at which the female students were taught practical life-skills in addition to the usual skills required to fit in to British Upper-Class Society. Also, as is common at Finishing Schools, a (often large) subset of students regularly sneaks out of the school grounds and explores neighbouring populated areas, thus acquiring at least some street-smarts. Our Lady Caroline was one of those students. Add to this her exposure to various levels of London society and their carousing behaviour, thanks to being one of the “Bright Young Things” of the 1920s, and she is obviously NOT naive, but instead possesses pretty-significant street smarts. Yet, in Trouble On A Country Lane, time and time again she displays both extreme naïveté and gullibility, combined with a serious lack of both book and street -smarts. This continues through to almost the very end of the novel.

There are most DEFINITELY ways to write Cozy Mysteries set in the 1920s that star INTELLIGENT, street-smart women. In fact, this is made easier for a writer, by the existence of street-smart London’s Bright Young Things and of the United States’ Flappers, in the 1920s.

Narration = 4/5 stars, because while Sandra Churchill performs a darn-good (but not perfect, especially since it contains some errors common to English performers attempting to sound American or Canadian), fake, generic American accent, she completely misses the mark on her attempt at a New York City accent.

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