Book Review — MISS KOPP’S MIDNIGHT CONFESSIONS: A Kopp Sisters Novel by Amy Stewart
Deputy sheriff Constance Kopp is outraged to see young women brought into the Hackensack jail over dubious charges of waywardness, incorrigibility, and moral depravity. The strong-willed, patriotic Edna Heustis, who left home to work in a munitions factory, certainly doesn’t belong behind bars. And sixteen-year-old runaway Minnie Davis, with few prospects and fewer friends, shouldn’t be publicly shamed and packed off to a state-run reformatory. But such were the laws — and morals — of 1916.
Constance uses her authority as deputy sheriff, and occasionally exceeds it, to investigate and defend these women when no one else will. But it’s her sister Fleurette who puts Constance’s beliefs to the test and forces her to reckon with her own ideas of how a young woman should and shouldn’t behave.
Against the backdrop of World War I, and drawn once again from the true story of the Kopp sisters, ‘Miss Kopp’s Midnight Confessions’ is a spirited, page-turning story that will delight fans of historical fiction and lighthearted detective fiction alike.
Miss Kopp’s Midnight Confessions is the third Kopp Sisters novel, based on three real-life, unconventional women from the early 1900s.
This book is less of a mystery than the first two. While we still investigate crime with Constance Kopp, the story is more about the social mores of the era. We deep-dive into so-called “morality crimes,” with laws designed to rein in and punish strong-willed, independent women. These lopsided laws charged women, but rarely their male partners, with crimes of indecency. Whether these women had actually done anything “indecent” was irrelevant.
Amy Stewart fully immerses us in the setting and atmosphere. All the little details make this story come alive.
This book works fine as a stand-alone, though I think it’s best to start at the beginning in order to fully understand the characters and their relationships.
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