An unusual female detective, from 1915

The Golden Slipper, and Other Problems for Violet Strange, Anna Katharine Green  (TBR shelves, 2020)

I had seen Anna Katharine Green described as the first women to write detective stories in the U.S. before I found a pristine Penguin edition of her first book, The Leavenworth Case from 1878, on the library sale shelves. I thought it was interesting for its setting in Gilded Age New York as much for the locked-room mystery. After finishing it, I found a couple of her later books in print and added them to the TBR stacks. I was in a strange mood this week when I couldn't settle on a book to read, and I picked this one up almost at random.

The Golden Slipper consists of nine "Problems" that Violet Strange helps to resolve, most set in New York City. She is a woman of fashion, a popular figure, welcome everywhere and showered with invitations. She is described as a debutante in the first chapter, but like some of Georgette Heyer's characters, she has poise and confidence, she is not an ingenue. Though she is the daughter of a wealthy man, she works for the head of detective agency as a confidential agent. We never learn his name. The daughter of a wealthy man, with a limousine at her disposal and outfits for every social occasion, Violet nevertheless needs money, and she must keep her work (and her funds) secret from her father. This need for money forces Violent to accept cases she would rather not be involved in, and it's a thread running through the stories. Eventually we find out why she needs the money, as the final "problem" is sorted out.

The cases that she takes are an interesting mix. Some involve theft, others murder. They become increasingly complex and melodramatic, particularly the last one, which has a secret passageway with corpses whose cause of death I had a hard time taking seriously. Violet falls in love with one of central characters in a "Problem," another thread that runs through the stories. Since he is described as 

"a degenerate in some respects, lacking the domineering presence, the strong mental qualities, and inflexible character of his progenitors, the wealthy Massachusetts [family] whose great place on the coast had a history as old as the State itself, he yet had gifts and attractions of his own which would have made him a worthy representative of his race, if only he had not fixed his affections on a woman so cold and heedless..."

Struck by the word "degenerate," I couldn't believe he turned out to be the love interest (but not the reason she needed the money).

I enjoyed the stories, the earlier ones more than the later. This was apparently Anna Katharine Green's only book to feature Violet Strange. I do have another of her books on my shelves, Lost Man's Lane, whose main character is Amelia Butterworth, an older woman who inserts herself into the mystery and like Miss Silver and Miss Marple, sees more than the police officers do.