"Miss Kopp Investigates" | Reviewed by Pat Sainz

“Miss Kopp Investigates,” by Amy Stewart, is the seventh in a series about three independent sisters who lived in the first decades of the 20th century. The delightful series is based on real women who formed a female detective agency in the 1920s.

The author’s research is based on newspaper reports and interviews with family members. The result is entertaining stories of sleuthing based on fact and fiction. Readers will come to love the unique personalities of Constance, Norma and Fleurette.

Fleurette, the youngest in the family, is featured in this narrative. Fleurette has been sidelined from her stage work as an actress and singer because of a serious illness that affected her throat. She is resigned to work as a seamstress to help support her recently widowed sister-in-law and her three children, one who is an infant. She dreads her imagined life.

When serious financial straits affect her sister-in-law, more than they had anticipated, Fleurette secretly agrees to work on the side with a lawyer who specializes in divorce cases. She is to surreptitiously act as a foil for men wishing to present their own evidence of infidelity that will get them out of an unhappy marriage. It is completely innocent.

When circumstances backfire, Fleurette, naturally dramatic and curious, then plots to uncover a scheme by a crooked fortune-teller and her partner to cheat women out of their jewelry or other valuables. Fleurette has accidentally overheard the plans for their most recent swindle.

Fleurette is following in the footsteps of her sisters who have both been involved in solving crimes and assisting in investigations. Their adventures are detailed in the previous books in the series. Once Fleurette’s knack for sleuthing becomes evident, the sisters form the Kopp Sisters Detective Agency with adventures certain to be part of number eight in the series.

The author has a gift for developing believable plots and credible personalities. I recommend this entire series for readers interested in an immersion into a period of time following WWI in America, and for those looking to befriend three sisters who emulate love for one another, appreciate adventure, and are bravely independent.

Buy the Book.