In 1878 Maya is an administrative assistant at the Bombay Detective Agency who has been focused on her ambition to become a detective, and now she thinks she's finally got her chance. I got my opportunity to receive a review copy of The Spiritualist by Noah Alexander from Story Origin after the author approved me. I posted my last review for Story Origin a year ago. It was a review of a highly unusual epic fantasy called The Sands of Eppla by Janeal Falor. You can find it here. My review of this prequel to a historical mystery series is below.
Readers may not realize this, but Maya was somewhat ahead of the curve in her administrative assistant position. In the 1870's administrative assistants/secretaries were usually men. So Maya's boss, Henry Camleman, probably felt he was being avant-garde in hiring a woman to perform secretarial tasks. Being asked to imagine that a woman could be a detective was probably beyond his capacity.
I thought there were a couple of shout outs to other fictional female detectives in The Spiritualist. Like Sara Gran's mystery protagonist, Claire DeWitt, Maya relies on a handbook. It's also mentioned that Maya's roommate is named Maisie. This could be a reference to Jacqueline Winspear's detective, Maisie Dobbs.
As her first case, Maya is asked to help Camleman win a bet. His friend, Mortemius Chinew, a paranormal researcher, had a longstanding bet with Camleman, that he could prove the existence of spirits. Camleman had bet that Chinew couldn't prove that. Chinew claimed that there was a spirit at his new home. Camleman sent Maya. Maya shows herself to be an intelligent and determined investigator.
I'm not sure about the order of the books in Noah Alexander's Maya Mysteries following this prequel which is called Book 1. To add to the confusion, The Murderer of Cardim and The Anatomist's Secret are also both labeled Book 1. Maya herself might look for clues in the description of each book that would clarify the issue, but I would just read the one I preferred. You really can't go wrong. Any novel in which Maya is the protagonist is sure to be worth reading.
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