When my best friend alerted me to the series of mysteries by Allison Montclair, she did it with a warning not to start until I have time to read, read, read. She wasn’t kidding, I read from the first through the fourth in a weekend. The novels take place shortly after WWII and with the army being demobilized, men are taking their jobs back leaving women who had been activated during the war at loose ends. Iris Sparks is impulsive, intuitive, and full of intrigue about what she did during the war. Gwen Bainbridge is methodical, organized, and technically not sane in the eyes of the courts. Grief at her husband’s death led to her commitment to a sanitorium. Her in-law’s have custody of her son and a law firm controls her inheritance. When the two meet, that mysterious alchemy of friendship leads them to start a marriage bureau together. It’s call The Right Sort and they are confident their contrary methods, when they converge on a candidate, will find the right sort for marriage.

Their adventures begin in The Right Sort of Man  when a client is indicted for murdering the woman they picked for him. A Royal Affair finds them investigating a potential husband for the Queen. A Rogue’s Company centers on Gwen’s family. Her father-in-law returns from Africa and brought trouble with him. When a woman is murdered in Iris’ apartment in The Unkept Woman she is the obvious suspect. She needs to find out the truth and quickly.

The Sparks & Bainbridge series of historical mysteries is a complete winner for me. These are fair play mysteries that we can solve because we know what Iris and Gwen know. They follow the rules of the Detection Club, though not the stricter rules of S.S. van Dine written in 1928. After al, there are two detectives and a bit of romance as well.

I like Iris and Gwen who are temperamentally polar opposites but have similar values and dedication to justice. I like how they support each other and other women. I like the historical details that add valuable color and context to the stories. I am so far behind on my reading, I am postponing the new release The Lady from Burma until I can read it without guilt. And then in a year, there will be another, Murder at the White Palace. I can hardly wait.