All Men Glad and Wise

The steward of Willingford Hall was murdered in the Dell on 12 March 1919. I found his body because I’d been thrown by a horse. It’s difficult to say which event was more unlikely.

Willingford Hall stable lad Harry Green is about to make a discovery even more unlikely than a corpse.

With the estate near bankruptcy and the rise of automobiles fast replacing horse travel, Harry, a young woman passing as a lad, will soon be out of a job. Facing the knowledge she has no skills in the service positions open to women, Harry resolves to discover who murdered the steward, thus becoming a woman who can determine her own future. But as her investigation proceeds, a second murder demonstrates just how dangerous her knowledge is. Soon, no matter where she rides, she finds that somebody is following her.

Part coming-of-age and part cozy mystery, All Men Glad and Wise confronts a time of tremendous social change: the inequities of service jobs, the quandaries of grooms as technology advances, and the patriarchal assumptions that exclude women from both valued work and riding astride. Harry, like horsemanship, and like England, is on the cusp of a world looking forward.



Genre: Cozy Mystery

"Set on a classic British estate just after World War I, brimming with local characters and high-bred horses, All Men Glad and Wise will have you turning pages until midnight and rooting for Harry Green, the precocious young groom investigating a murder. Yet author Laura Stevenson has created far more than a wonderfully old-fashioned whodunnit-think Agatha Christie meets Remains of the Day; skillfully weaving the social tumult and psychological damage of "the war to end all wars," exposing a corrupt regime's insidious classism and sexism, Stevenson illuminates an England in ragged transition. Stevenson's crisp, spare prose is effortless to read-like 4 o'clock tea, but steeped with pathos and humanity. I sincerely hope we'll be reading more of Harry Green's adventures." - Melanie Finn