The Jazz Files by Fiona Veitch Smith

Introducing Poppy Denby, a young journalist in London during the Roaring Twenties, investigating crime in the highest social circles
It is 1920. Twenty-two year old Poppy Denby moves from Northumberland to live with her paraplegic aunt in London. Aunt Dot, a suffragette who was injured in battles with the police in 1910, is a feisty and well-connected lady.
Poppy has always dreamed of being a journalist, and quickly lands a position as an editorial assistant at the Daily Globe. Then one of the paper's hacks, Bert Isaacs, dies suddenly and messily. Poppy and photographer Daniel Rokeby (with whom Poppy has an immediate and mutual attraction) begin to wonder if Bert was pushed. His story was going to be the morning lead, but he hasn't finished writing it. Poppy finds his notes and completes the story, which is a sensation.
The Globe's editor, realising her valuable suffragette contacts, invites her to dig deeper. Poppy starts sifting through the dead man's files and unearths a major mystery which takes her to France--and abruptly into danger.

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Biography

Formerly a journalist, Fiona Veitch Smith has written books, theatre plays and screenplays. 'The Jazz Files' is the first novel in her mystery series, Poppy Denby Investigates, and is set in the 1920s. Her standalone novel, 'The Peace Garden', is a romantic thriller set in England and South Africa. Her 'Young David picturebook' series (illustrated by Amy Barnes Warmington) are based on the Biblical character of King David when he was a young boy. She lives with her husband, daughter and two dogs in Newcastle upon Tyne where she lectures in media and scriptwriting at the local universities. She has a passion for cheesecake, Pilates and playing the clarinet - preferably not at the same time!

Here's what I thought.....

When I first started reading the book I thought I was going to like it. Then, all the bad language started. It wasn't horrible at first, even though I thought this was a Christian fiction. It lessened somewhat in the middle of the book and I really got into the story, but about ten chapters from the end it got extremely bad. There is also mention of two of the female characters being more than friends. These two things really made me dislike the book. Even though the writing is done well and the characters are good, the bad outweighs the good in my opinion. Had I been informed of the subject matter and language I might have been able to decide if this book was for me before getting it to read.

The author does a decent job at the mystery part and up until the talk of women who were much more than friends started I was interested. Her writing is good and would have probably been a favorite of mine without the above mentioned issues that I had.

I received this book from Kregel in exchange for a review. A positive review was not required.