Brighton Belle (A Mirabelle Bevan Mystery Book 1) Kindle Edition

You would think that after decades of reading, and decades of disappointments, I would have learned that – sometimes – there really is truth to that old saw about a book by its cover. But sometimes you /can/ judge a book! And look at this one! It's gorgeous!Dammit.So the story goes that Mirabelle worked in the offices for the secret service during WWII, though she never went into the field, and now that the war is over she has a job working with a debt collector.A client comes in one day looking to get his money back from a girl who has disappeared and then she turns up dead only something seems hinky about it and meanwhile Mirabelle's boss is home sick but then he disappears too and then there's a high-end prostitute who kills her client and they're all connected to this other woman and also to this priest that Mirabelle and her now-dead lover Jack knew in the war and then he disappears along with the girl who works in the office down the hall from Mirabelle who gets swept into the whole mess and kidnapped and … did I leave anything out? Probably.Actually, one thing I'm leaving out is the motivation behind it all. There's a sort of "oh, really?" reveal, when later comes a moment where a character introduces himself – "He walked over to the corner of the room and dramatically pulled off the tarpaulin to reveal" something very exciting. That would have been such a dramatic moment … if the reader didn't already know all about it. Actually, any of the revelations – like who that girl who owed the money was – were kind of lame.Mirabelle … She is the epitome of the "I'm not going to tell the police anything because obviously I know far better than they do" kind of detective. She decides that with her training she's totally qualified to fling herself into the whole thing and get to the bottom of it. She flings caution and common sense (and legality) to the wind and begins breaking into places willy nilly. Of course she appropriates evidence. One suspect/witness tells her so much upon three minutes' acquaintance and some very awkward questioning that I think my mouth was hanging open for the whole scene – it was absurd.“I’m not Secret Service any more, Sandor. That was a long time ago. I told you. It’s a different world now.”Sandor spluttered. “What do you mean: you are not Secret Service? What nonsense is this? After all we’ve been through. Come now!”Mirabelle lost her composure. “I told you, Sandor. I told you! I work for a debt collection agency. That’s all. And this matter is in the hands of the police. I can refer you to them.”The only plausible excuse for this kind of interference by a civilian is that the police are either uninterested or incompetent. To use one of my favorite Star Trek quotes, "Sorry – neither." The cop in charge is not stupid, and he's working the case(s) as hard anyone could. And all I could think as this woman tromps through crime scenes and flies by the seat of her pants was that if she would only collaborate with the cops everything might resolve more quickly and safely. She finds herself looking for a house somewhere there have been noise complaints – something the police should have the resources to be able to find very quickly."We need information, Miss Churchill, but this isn’t a job for amateurs."And then the young woman from the office down the hall, Vesta, becomes involved. Where Mirabelle has a modicum of training from the war, Vesta is pure civilian, and struck me as little more than a lamb to the slaughter. She does not volunteer – she is volunteered by Mirabelle. She baffles me, Vesta does. She's a black woman struggling to succeed in post-war England, and I think she's supposed to be of Jamaican origins, but she comes off as American South. "'Ha! You ain’t such a lady after all!' Vesta teased."In the end, terrible things happen that I can't imagine would have happened if Mirabelle hadn't been trying to do it all on her own with her even more inexperienced helper. It was completely implausible, and deeply irritating, and when a completely and utterly unnecessary death occurs the book loses any possibility of anything more than a two-star rating.Chapter headings throughout are taken from many different sources, but these sources are not, as they usually are, given with the quotes. Instead they're all lumped into one page at the end… so when one chapter is headed "All right then, I’ll go to hell" I was just … confused.What amazes me is that after so many things go wrong, such horrific things happen – after Mirabelle spends a time bemoaning things like "I’ve failed, she thought miserably. I can’t save anyone, least of all myself. There are corpses everywhere. I’m the kiss of death" … still, at the end she is so pleased with herself that she and Vesta are going into business together. And a whole new series is born. "We got skills", Vesta states.Like what? Only screwing things up badly enough that some people get killed, not everyone?It may not need saying that I had a hard time liking Mirabelle. Part of the reader's introduction to her is as she avoids paying a fee for using a deck chair … even though it comes to be pretty obvious that she has ample money. The writing is mostly adequate to the task of telling the story, in terms of putting sentences together, but as my attempt at summarizing the plot above may indicate it's all very confused. There is head-hopping; there is homonym confusion; there are a few really jumbled, slightly disastrous sentences. Overall … not a promising beginning.One last note – I find it depressing that the only two books I've ever seen use my grandmother's maiden name, Duggan, are this one and another one which was nearly as bad.The usual disclaimer: I received this book via Netgalley for review.

This is a mystery set in early 1950's Brighton, England. The protagonist is a young woman still dealing with the death of her lover 18 months ago. She's working at a debt collection agency but harbors a secret past. During the war, she served with the Secret Service. Her past skills start to come in handy when a Hungarian woman, as well as her boss Ben, go missing. This is a very light read that could do with editing--it needs better defined characters, better descriptions of places, and more indepth info on Mirabelle's war work. It has potential, but I wonder at the likelihood of Mirabelle's background, married lover, and black sidekick. A bit of a stretch.

Mirabelle Bevan, about whom this book revolves, is a remarkable woman, inspiring even. During the war she worked for the Secret Service; not in the field, as she frequently points out, but in a desk job. But she read all the manuals.Now in post-World War II England, Mirabelle Bevan is having a bit of a hard time adjusting to peace. After all, in the war, no-one was just ordinary, and now life is nothing but ordinary.She has taken a job working in the office of a debt collector in Brighton following the death of her long term lover Jack. While following up on a routine debt collection matter in the absence of her boss "Big Ben", her instincts for spotting deceit are stirred and she is soon embroiled in a melee of missing persons, dead bodies, prostitution and gold coins.This is a cracking good read! The plot moves along at a good pace and is infused with a tongue-in-cheek humour. The characters are interesting, and I became very fond of Mirabelle. So fond of her that I am eagerly looking forward to further adventures with her.A heartfelt thank you to NetGalley and Kensington books for the ARC of Brighton Belle in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

Aside from a few quibbles-- would a 20-year-old secretary working in car insurance know anything about money laundering in post war England? Would a former intelligence service worker, even one who wasn't out in the field, choose to wear a pink frilly hat to blend in with a crowd at the racetrack? -- the two main characters are well developed, the plot moves along fast, and there is enough action to envision this as possible tv series. It's the late 1940s as imagined by someone attuned to the casual violence of today. I'd like to see more character development in future instalments, but there's definitely enough positive aspects to give this newish series a try. Mirabelle is a former Bletchley girl and too smart and curious for her own good. Vesta is sprightly, just past her teens and eager for new experiences. Together they are intrepid and courageous even when shaking in their high heels.

I tried really hard to stay with this storyline. It started out so promising. It was interesting and intriguing and I just couldn't put it down. But then the heroine started becoming so multi-charactered that I wasn't sure if she was the same person or not. I was beginning to figure things out while she was still pondering. Made me feel like the author had it going and was typing and typing because the ideas were all coming out and then POP - she dried up and couldn't quite get her finger back in the pot to stir it. You know what I mean? I didn't hate it and I will probably buy the sequel hoping she was actually able to finish it this time...........

I was looking for a holiday read amongst my one hundred Kindle items, and this one seemed a bit out of the mould. The same might be said of the lead character, Mirabelle Bevan, though of course she's good looking and single. Although the author lets us in about "Jack" and to some extent what Mirabelle did in the War, inevitably I had the slight feeling of arriving half way through a party.The book has the odd flaw. It's unlikely that even then you'd come across a prostitute whose parents were "a doctor and a psychiatrist" and who spoke several European languages fluently and without accent, including....."Austrian" (!). And there are some interesting snippets, such as the worthy RC priest in the Waugh/Greene style. And we are told that, "a good detective never gets married", which explains a lot! Also I could sympathise with the newly appointed Detective Superintendent who suffered from "upward delegation" from the man who didn't get his job.At the end of the book we are given a list of discussion topics for book groups. These are well thought out and demonstrate that the author considers her book to be a serious one. That's fair enough, but it's also a good detective thriller which holds your attention and is worth reading.

Mirabelle Bevan, is bored it must be said. Her life during the Second World War was slightly more exciting even though it was from a desk within the Secret Service and her lover was also to be found there when not on secret missions. But the end of the war changes a lot of things and it is now 1951, Mirabelle's lover is now dead and she has moved to Brighton where she has taken up an administration role within a debt collection agency. Life is very every day and humdrum.But then unexpectedly a case comes into the agency that suddenly stirs the past interest of Mirabelle and perhaps her skills can be put to use once again. Mirabelle takes on the case in the absence of her boss. It seems simple enough a man from London needs to get some money back from a women recently moved to Brighton. But suddenly it is far from simple and Mirabelle finds herself embroiled in the London underworld, with prostitutes living it up in the Grand Hotel and the money changing hands at the race track. And where exactly has her boss got to?Sara Sheridan captures 1950s post war Britain,very well, rationing was still in force, rebuilding the cities was a slow process, memories were still fresh in the way some had been treated by the Nazis. Combining this with the well created characters, even those that were no longer with us, such as Mirabelle's married lover still give a strong impact to the story as a whole. Sheridan is not afraid of introducing Vesta Churchill, a young black woman who works along the corridor from Mirabelle into the story, not just to become her side kick for future novels but also the difficulty a black female was having to cope with the prejudice of 1950s Britain. This may well be a crime novel but it is very much a social history novel at the same time. I look forward to seeing what Mirabelle and Vesta get up to.

Brighton Belle is a murder mystery of the highest order and not all at the same time. For me it's as much about Mirabelle as a person as it is about her solving the crime at the heart of the novel. She's fascinating and half the reason I found the novel so enjoyable. She's very much an unlikely heroine, sitting behind her desk at the debt collection agency, but this adds to her charm. The also novelist excels when it comes to setting a brilliant scene and it's the little details which add depth, such as Vesta's Cadbury's biscuit tin which sticks in my mind.The pace of this novel quickens as you'd expect as it veers towards its conclusion and more and more facts about the mysterious Laszlo are discovered. As the reader follows Mirabelle and Vesta on their dangerous quest they're as believable as any crime-fighting duo team in literature or film. This novel is evidently part of a series, one which I can't wait for the next installment of, as elements are left open to interpretation and there are holes that will undoubtedly be filled in a later date. The relationship between Mirabelle and Superintendent McGregor is one that I'm particularly looking forward to seeing develop (I hope that it does anyway).An unexpected hit, extremely enjoyable and exactly my kind of read. All the drama and thrill of a murder mystery set in a time period I find particularly interesting.

This is the first book for years that I've been strongly drawn to by the cover. I think it's the author that described it as "cosy noir"- it's a pretty good description, although I'd say there's more noir than cosy.Brighton Belle's central character is Mirabelle Bevan, living in Brighton in 1951. Bevan administers the McGuigan & McGuigan debt collection agency but has no real life of her own - it's as if she's numbed herself, trying to escape from her past as a wartime secret service agent and the memory of her married but dead lover.The mystery starts with the search for a pregnant Hungarian refugee and soon expands into a trail that includes war criminals, a dodgy doctor and stolen Nazi gold. Mirabelle is aided by Vesta Churchill, who is quickly drawn into shared danger as they both follow a trail which runs across the whole spectrum of Brighton life from the plush opulence of the Grand Hotel to the seediness of the racetrack. There are plenty of dead bodies as well as some nice/nasty surprises along the way.Sheridan paints a good picture of post war Brighton, with touches that make both the time and place authentic. Both Mirabelle and Vesta are feisty ladies and as characters quite appealing. I particularly liked Vesta's honest but unspoken comments about Mirabelle's appearance, which added a piquant depth to both their characters.Because it's not a "heart stopping thrills and excitement on every page" novel, this probably isn't a book that you would rave about. However my feeling is that its characters, plot and atmosphere make it a book that's worth picking up and reading.

By choosing an unusual time period (the 1950s) and an unusual protagonist (a former researcher and back-office handler in some unstated area of the British wartime secret service), this author starts with an intriguing proposition. Though she doesn't quite deliver on that promise, it's still a well-written and carefully plotted book. The tale moves along at a good pace and has plenty of odd twists and turns, some cliff-hanger moments and an unexpected ending. It makes a good read for a long, wet afternoon.That's the good news. Less good is the period detail, which never seems to go beyond the superficial. I was a child in the 1950s and even I recall it more clearly than this. The post-war austerity, the shabbiness and the sense of almost physical exhaustion after the supreme effort of wartime are all absent. Then the characterisation seems a little "off." Mirabelle is oddly disengaged much of the time and her discussions with Vesta about the problems of being a young, black woman in the Brighton of that time seem far too modern in outlook.But what made me feel least convinced was the constant stress on how almost impossibly chic and well-dressed all the female characters are. The author's other books seem to consist mostly of romances and I fear too much of that genre has spilled over. You expect a few bodices to get ripped at any moment! More down-to-earth dowdiness and poor quality austerity clothing would help increase the sense of realism, however beautiful she wants her female characters to be inside their clothes. Fewer stiletto heels would also be more authentic. I can't say I ever remember seeing such shoes until the 1960s, and then only on the feet of wealthy, fashionable film stars and the like.So, a good idea, some good writing and a pretty good plot let down by mistakes I'm hoping she'll put right by the time the next instalment comes out.