Mysterious Reviews, mysteries reviewed by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books, is publishing a new review of Indigo Christmas by Jeanne M. Dams. For our blog readers, we are printing it first here in advance of its publication on our website.
Indigo Christmas by Jeanne M. Dams
A Hilda Johansson Mystery
Perseverence Press (Trade Paperback)
ISBN-10: 1-880284-95-2 (1880284952)
ISBN-13: 978-1-880284-95-7 (9781880284957)
Publication Date: September 2008
List Price: $14.95
Review: When the husband of one of Hilda Johansson's closest friends is accused of murder when he finds, and keeps, the abandoned wallet of the dead man, Hilda jumps right in to clear his name in Indigo Christmas, the sixth mystery in this series by Jeanne M. Dams.
Hilda is still struggling with her change in economic and social status, from being a servant to having servants. An additional complication comes in the form of a very pregnant Norah who arrives on Hilda's doorstep after her husband Sean is arrested. Though Sean is soon released, the police still believe he's involved somehow. Even after Norah and Sean's daughter is born, they remain in residence at Hilda's home. In the meantime, Hilda decides to find out more about the dead man Sean was initially accused of killing and how he came to be sleeping in a barn that caught fire. Under the guise of a community outreach program, she enlists a group of young boys to be her eyes and ears. As she notes, "People never really looked at servants, never saw past the cap and apron to the human being inside." But she also knows that gives them the opportunity to observe and hear things they probably shouldn't, young boys share the same status, as it were.
Readers expecting a mystery may be disappointed with Indigo Christmas, at least initially. Much of the early part of the book is devoted to Hilda, herself an immigrant and until just recently in the employ of a wealthy family, lamenting how to remain friends with other servants while being the lady of her own house. Though of Swedish descent, she deplores the conditions of the Irish immigrants in her community. This discourse on social injustice and prejudice of the early 1900s substantially overshadows the nascent mystery plot.
About halfway through, a standard mystery does emerge, the most entertaining aspect of which is Hilda playing Sherlock Holmes to her own version of the Baker Street Irregulars. The boys are eager participants, asking questions of people and relaying the information to her. In exchange they are rewarded with chocolate or nickels. With what she learns, and from her own observations, she manages to piece together a potential solution to the crime and sets out to expose the real culprit. In the end, Indigo Christmas has an interesting and credible story but it's a shame the path it takes at first is so circuitous.
Special thanks to Perseverence Press for providing a copy of Indigo Christmas for this review.
Review Copyright © 2008 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved.
If you are interested in purchasing Indigo Christmas from Amazon.com, please click the button to the right.
Synopsis (from the publisher): Once housemaid to the wealthy Studebaker family in South Bend, Indiana, Hilda Johansson is now married and living a well-to-do life with her new husband. But her Swedish family doesn’t get along with his Irish relations. She’s having trouble finding friends, since she no longer fits into her old world and isn’t accepted in the new one. Just before Christmas, when the husband of her sole remaining friend is accused of theft, arson, and murder, Hilda has to find new ways of investigating a crime that seems to make no sense.
In the hard times of 1904 with bank failures weekly, Hilda tries to help the unemployed youth of South Bend by helping to form a Boys’ Club (modeled after Hull House founded in Chicago).. And she also enlists some of them as “Baker Street Irregulars” in her mystery investigation, giving the reader a vivid sense of the city and street life of the times.
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