Cathy Pegau wrote two of my favorite science fiction romance novellas: Deep Deception and Rulebreaker. Now she has a series of mysteries which I am madly binge reading. Set in Cordova, Alaska, in 1919, the Charlotte Brody Mysteries are as cozy as possible given that they involve lethal crimes, with just a smidge of romance and a lot of atmosphere.

Charlotte Brody is introduced in Murder on the Last Frontier, the first book in the series. She’s a suffragette and a journalist who moves to Cordova, where her brother is a doctor. When a local prostitute named Darcy is murdered, Charlotte decides to help local law enforcement find the killer, whether they want her help or not.

One thing that the book does well is avoid the “disposable sex worker” cliche. Charlotte hears a lot about Darcy from a lot of people, which makes Darcy feel like a person rather than a chalk outline. She becomes good friends with the woman who runs the brothel where Darcy worked and with Darcy’s best friend. Charlotte is quite vocal around town for believing that as long as women are not forced into sex work, there’s nothing wrong with following that profession.

I was also pleased at how this book handles abortion. It’s rare to feature a heroine who has had an abortion – so often that decision is dodged at the last minute by a change of heart or by a miscarriage. Charlotte had an illegal abortion in the past. She has guilt about the fact that she didn’t want a baby, but she clearly would not make any other choice. The second book (Borrowing Death) includes a woman who dies because of an illegal abortion, and her choice is treated by two other characters who know about it with respect towards the woman and with anger towards the doctor who killed her.

In terms of class, Charlotte fits with the more affluent and respectable families of Cordova. They talk to her because she is part of their circle through her brother, a highly respected doctor. However, in terms of political and social ideas, Charlotte fits with the prostitutes and the working people of the town. Charlotte is someone who has no interest in shaming herself or others. As a journalist, she has a legitimate reason to talk to everyone, which is great because she loves talking to everyone. Plus, it’s quite handy in terms of her gathering information about crimes.

This series reminds me just a bit of Miss Fisher’s Mysteries, a show that all of here at the Bitchery are madly in love with. The time period is the same, and the first book refers to the emotional trauma of war, much as several episodes of Miss Fisher do. Like Miss Fisher, Charlotte is extremely progressive for her time – indeed, as an opponent of prohibition and a supporter of non-coercive prostitution, she’s more progressive than many other suffragettes.

Charlotte is also romantically interested in the town’s Deputy Marshal, a man who respects her bravery and intelligence but also keeps telling her to butt the hell out of his investigations before she either botches his own efforts or gets herself killed. Despite being set in a muddy, rough and tumble town, the first book finds several reasons for Charlotte to dress up, giving her just a hint of glamour. I’m not saying that this book is derivative at all; I am saying that I’d really love it if somehow Miss Fisher and Charlotte could meet for drinks sometime. “Does your love interest gaze at you with both rage and longing every time he finds you breaking into a building?” “Oh yes, ALL THE TIME.”

The Eyak people (the Native Alaskans local to Cordova) lived outside of town for the most part during the time period in which this book is set. In the first book, reference to them is made only fleetingly. In the second book, two people who have a white mother and an Eyak father are major characters, although their identity as natives is barely addressed. It looks like the third book, Murder on Location (due out in March of 2017) will be the most inclusive of the Eyak. The plot of that book deals with a Native Rights group which worries that a new movie shot on location in Cordova might not represent them accurately. I look forward to that, since the lack of attention to Eyak culture and life bothered me in the first two books, even though it made a certain amount of sense given that they were not fully integrated into town life at that time.

In the meantime, I enjoyed the first two books in this series tremendously. I lived in Alaska for a while in an area very different from Cordova (and not in 1919) and I must say that the appearance of pilot bread crackers warmed my heart. How I miss pilot crackers and homemade salmonberry jam!

This is, of course, an ongoing series, so the romance and other personal issues are not wrapped up in each individual book. However, each book ends with a solved mystery. Despite all the mayhem, I’m finding the books to be quite comforting. Now if I could just get some good Phryne Fisher/Charlotte Brody fanfic going!