The Experiences of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective

Loveday Brooke, an “altogether nondescript” woman, is one of the detective agency Lynch Court’s most able investigators. Her shrewd brain and immense common sense make it easy to look past the obvious solution to get to the heart of the matter, whenever her skills are called for. In this collection of short stories, Miss Brooke solves cases that have stumped the local police, including burglaries, missing people, and even murders. Catherine Louisa Pirkis was already a successful author when she started penning the Loveday Brooke stories. Originally serialized in The Ludgate Monthly between 1893 and 1894, they were collected into this single volume later in 1894. The book received positive reviews from contemporary critics, including one who praised her as “outshining the detective Sherlock Holmes in preternatural prescience”—before concluding that she was unlikely to catch a husband if she carried on as a detective. Largely forgotten in the twentieth century, Loveday Brooke has seen a recent resurgence, with modern re-releases and praise as a example of a Victorian story that focuses on the work of a woman in a normally male-dominated industry.