I decided to write about a book I have recently finished and I want all the book lovers to go out and read it. I think that I loved it so much, because it is so relevant to everything that we are going through right now.
Mrs Sherlock Holmes by Brad Ricca
I HIGHLY recommend this one! Especially at the moment. When I first started this one, I thought it was just going to be about the Ruth Cruger case. It was so much more than that!
It’s all about police corruption, the “buddy buddy” culture within the police. It writes about her rise and ultimately how the Patriarchy tried to bring her down. Where it touches on a little about the suffragette movement. When people ask me now which three people, living or dead, would I ask around to dinner. One will be Mary Grace Quackenbos. I don’t want to write anymore about it. Just read it, and read it NOW.
For those who don’t know this book is based on a real person and a real famous case. Mary Grace Quackenbos, was a real person, a real lawyer and a real “detective”. Ruth Cruger was a real missing girl. Apart from the missing girl case, Quackenbos was really known for helping people get out, who were laboured with peonage or the person slave trade. Although peonage was officially outlawed in the states in 1867, it still went on. The reason why MGQ was called in, was because when Ruth Cruger went missing, there was a lot of alarm around the white person slave trading going on.
One of the reasons I found this book so fascinating was because how many of the issues and situations in this book, are still prevalent to this day.
When Ruth first disappeared, the police put it down to Ruth being a “bad girl”, and that she had just run off with some unknown man. Even though there was absolutely no proof of this. The only thing that Ruth took with her were her ice skates, no extra clothes, no money, just the skates.
The police did not thoroughly investigate Alfred Cochi’s, motorbike shop, where Ruth was heading to get to her skates sharpened. When it came out later, it was found that Alfred repaired and adjust a lot, if not all of the NYPD motorbike patrol bikes, at the same time.
When Mary Grace Quackenbos, started to investigate the Army though. With underage girls being taken back to their local training camps, a couple had disappeared. That was when she went too “far”. That’s when people started to question her, even though, by the evidence at the time, she was correct. Some of the local soldiers, were taking underage girls back with them. The Patriarchy decided that was a “step too far”. She was trying to smear the name of the Army…All of a sudden all the police originally question with the Ruth Cruger case, were suddenly let off, some got promotions, most were welcome back. MGQ, lost all her prominent positions. The media were HORRIBLE to her. After, they decided to credit the male detectives with the discovery of Ruth Cruger, even though it was because of MGQ constant poking and prodding. The male detectives physically brought out the body.
Quackenbos, just you know:
- Got the search warrants approved.
- Talked to Alfred’s wife, who was being a pain.
- Actually questioned the police and dug more into the original witnesses accounts.
- Listened to the family plea’s of “She had been kidnapped, she would never have just run off”.
- Did some ACTUAL investigation into the Cochi’s.
- Found the blue prints for them to dig around the Cochi’s cellars.
- Oh, bought the Cochi’s house. So the detectives could get into the Cochi’s old cellar.
You know though, it was the male detectives.
Sound familiar?
This could literally be today, and it makes you wonder, really.
Lolsys Library 