Dear Miss Kopp by Amy Stewart

 

Amy Stewart is back with a SIXTH installment of the Miss Kopp series! Girl Waits With Gun was published in 2015 and Stewart has given us a sequel every year since. 

If you have not read any of the series you won't know that the main characters are based on real people. 

Constance Kopp was one of the first lady cops. She had a sister Norma, and 'sister' Fleurette who is really Constance's child, the result of being seduced by a door-to-door Singer salesman when she was a teenager. Stewart has delved into the newspaper files to resurrect the Kopp girls, fictionalizing freely to fill in the blanks left in their histories.

The series begins in 1914, and this installment brings us to WWI.

Constance has been recruited by Washington, DC to spy on American Germans aiding the enemy. Fleurette is entertaining the stateside troops as part of a song and dance troupe. And Norma has enlisted to help the Army develop a pigeon messenger program in France where she rooms with a nurse.

Between the three Kopps, readers see the war from many fronts.

The novel is totally epistolary, comprised of the letters between the sisters, their bosses, and family and friends.

As in all the book in the series, a major focus in on the role of women in society, their contributions and the limitations society places on them. Norma fights for her work to be taken seriously and solves the problem of missing medical supplies. Fleurette is arrest under The American Plan which locked up women suspected of sexual promiscuity and corrupting the troops. Constance goes undercover as a spy.

The crimes that the Kopps solve are based on actual crimes. One act of sabotage mentioned took place at the Curtiss North Elmwood plant in Buffalo, NY. It was the world's largest airplane factory when it was built, located just down the road from where I grew up. (My grandfather was an engineer at a later Curtiss plant operating during WWII.) 

Fans will enjoy the book. Newbies may want to start with the first in the series. Once you fall for the Kopps there is no turning back. We will read to the very end of the series!

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Read about the other books in the series:

https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2019/05/catching-up-with-miss-kopp.html

https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2019/09/kopp-sisters-on-march-by-amy-stewart.html

Dear Miss Kopp
by Amy Stewart
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt/ Mariner Books
Historical Fiction
Pub Date:  January 21, 2021   
ISBN: 9780358093121
paperback $15.99 (USD)

from the publisher

The indomitable Kopp sisters are tested at home and abroad in this warm and witty tale of wartime courage and camaraderie.

The U.S. has finally entered World War I is and Constance is chasing down suspected German saboteurs and spies for the Bureau of Investigation while Fleurette is traveling across the country entertaining troops with song and dance. Meanwhile, at an undisclosed location in France, Norma is overseeing her thwarted pigeon project for the Army Signal Corps. When Aggie, a nurse at the American field hospital, is accused of stealing essential medical supplies, the intrepid Norma is on the case to find the true culprit.

The far-flung sisters—separated for the first time in their lives—correspond with news of their days. The world has irrevocably changed—will the sisters be content to return to the New Jersey farm when the war is over?

Told through letters, Dear Miss Kopp weaves the stories of real life women into a rich fiction brimming with the historical detail and humor that are hallmarks of the series, proving once again that “any novel that features the Kopp Sisters is going to be a riotous, unforgettable adventure” (Bustle).

Kopp Sisters On the March by Amy Stewart

As a 2019 member of the Kopp Sisters Literary Society, I received an advanced copy of the fifth Kopp Sisters novel by Amy Stewart, Kopp Sisters on the March.

It came with lots of swag!

Stewart was unable to discover stories about the Kopp sisters during 1917 and 1918 so she let her imagination fill in the blanks. She decided to intertwine the National Service Schools into their story. She also brought in Beulah Binford, a notorious figure who had crossed paths with vaudeville manager Freeman Bernstein, who appears in Miss Kopp's Midnight Confessions.

Stewart realized the storylines were all about reinvention. Constance has lost her position as deputy and jail matron. Norma desperately wants to insert pigeons into WWI war communications. The women who join the National Service Schools hoped to find a life with purpose and meaning. And Beulah wanted to put her sordid past behind her.

This book in the series felt different than the previous ones because Constance's story is not really the one that grabs readers attention, but Beulah's. Constance is continuing to learn her strengths and at the end of the book has determined to present herself for a war-time position. But it is Beulah's slowly revealed back story that impels readers.

Beulah Binford

Once again, Stewart uses historical fiction to present women's ongoing concerns: double standards, child sexual abuse, substance abuse, poverty, abandonment, motherhood, the vilification of female sexuality.

These women prove they have the strength, will, intelligence, and self-belief to achieve their dreams.

I can't wait for book six, which will take place during WWI!

I received a free ARC in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Learn more about the National Service Schools
https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/satin-khaki-women-join-military-preparedness-movement-1916

Read my review of the first Constance Kopp book, Girl Waits With Gun
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2019/03/girl-waits-with-gun-by-amy-stewart.html
Read my reviews of the second, third, and fourth Miss Kopp books
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2019/05/catching-up-with-miss-kopp.html

Kopp Sisters on the March
by Amy Steward
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Hardcover: $26.00; ebook $14.99
ISBN-13/EAN: 9781328736529
ISBN-10: 1328736520
Publication Date: 09/17/2019

Catching Up with Miss Kopp

My library book club read Girl Waits With Gun by Amy Stewart last month and it was this month's book choice for my husband's Mystery Book Club. Both groups enjoyed the book and the Mystery Book Club scheduled to read the next book in the series, Lady Cop Makes Trouble, next year.

This month I also read Lady Cop Makes Trouble, Miss Kopp's Midnight Confessions, and Miss Kopp Just Won't Quilt in the last few weeks in preparation to read her upcoming addition to the series Kopp Sisters On The March.

Lady Cop continues the story of Constance, Norma, and Fleurette Kopp, based on newspaper articles about Constance Kopp. Constance became a jail matron in charge of female prisoners.

A male prisoner faking illness and is taken to the hospital. Under Constance's watch, a distraction diverts her attention and the man escapes. It is the Sheriff, not Constance, whose job is on the line and she determines to find the escapee and save Sheriff Heath's reputation and job.

The escapee was a doctor who faked the illness of his patients to extort money from the families.

Lady Cop Makes Trouble becomes a news story headline bringing unwanted attention to Constance.

As jail matron, Constance is both firm and humane.

I might not ever see these women cleansed of their crimes and misdeeds, and I might not keep them from misfortune and misery, but I could rid them of vermin and send them to sleep in a clean and quiet bed. For some of them, it was the first night they'd spend free of torment--of one kind of another--in years. from Lady Cop Makes Trouble

Constance becomes involved with the women in the jail, their backstories revealing the lives of women a hundred years ago.

At midnight a woman will tell almost anything if she finds one who is sympathetic to tell it to. from Miss Kopp's Midnight Confessions

Miss Kopp's Midnight Confessions concerns girls who leave home without parental permission and are accused of being 'wayward' by their parents, which entails the girls being sent to a reformatory. If the girl left town with a man he would be accused of white slavery and under the Mann Act which made it a crime if he transported the girl across state borders.

The stories of three girls show the many causes of a girl's leaving home and the legal consequences of doing so. A nineteen-year-old girl wants employment in the war effort and to see the wider world. A sixteen-year-old girl attaches herself to a man who can get her passage out of town. He sets her up in an apartment in his name. And then there is Fleuette and her dream of breaking into show business.

Young women were being locked up for months, and possibly years, over offenses that amounted to little more than leaving their parents' home without permission, or carrying on with an unsuitable man. Constance couldn't help notice that the unsuitable men were never arrested for their part in the crime. from Miss Kopp's Midnight Confessions

Women's parents and husbands determined their life choices. Parents sometimes opted to have their daughters arrested and sent to a reformatory until they were age 21. Constance visits the reformatory, run like a prison, where she sees orphans and children whose families were 'unsuitable.' Girls who fight or run away or set fires are sent into a closed room. The girls learned the domestic arts to prepare them for service or families and were on probation after they left, required to keep the job provided for them and to get approval if they wanted to marry.

The attractions of the greater world include working in a factory where girls could earn and spend their own money and the vaudeville stage with its painted glamour. Fleurette is taken by May Ward and her Dresden Dolls who sing There's a Little Bit of Bad in Every Good Little Girl, which Constance finds especially meaningful.

sheet music from my personal collection. Hear the song and read the lyrics
at https://www.sheetmusicsinger.com/theres-a-little-bit-of-bad-in-every-good-little-girl/

Girl Waits With Gun revealed that Constance was seduced by the traveling Singer sewing man and ran away from home to have her baby. Norman brought them back into the family home. A move meant the women could pass Fleurette off as her grandmother's child.

No one knows better that there's a little bit of bad in every good girl, and that girls gone bad can be reclaimed.

Miss Kopp Just Won't Quit shows Constance's determination and fearlessness when she pursues an escaped prisoner and rescues him from drowning. 

It is the 1916 election year and Sheriff Heath's appointment is coming to an end. The candidate for Sheriff, John Coulter, is focusing on the fact people have escaped instead of focusing on the positive that Miss Kopp has apprehended them.

The novel continues to probe the lives of women a hundred years ago. Miss Kopp visits girls in their new lives to encourage them to stay straight and helps a woman falsely committed to the asylum by a philandering husband. 

But this novel also considers the political climate of 1916, showing how some things haven't changed.

"It was an uncertain time in Bergen Country: there was labor unrest in the factories, a mistrust of immigrants who might be German sympathizers, and the very real fear that a munitions depot might go up like so many crates of firecrackers at the hands of secret agents of the Kaiser. And most of all, there was the absolute terror of war--a war we surely couldn't avoid much longer. The people were looking for an enemy, and John Courter had one on offer." from Miss Kopp Just Won't Quit by Amy Stewart

Miss Kopp is distressed by the machinations of John Courter. Sheriff Heath consoles her by saying, "He's putting all his worst qualities right out on display for the public to see," sure that the crowd of a few hundred people Courter drew did would not represent what the voters would decide on Election Day.

Meanwhile, Norma is inventing a portable homing pigeon station that could be used in the war effort for communication. Fluerette is part of the entertainment at the Plattsburg camp where men are training to be prepared for war. 

With the new sheriff comes huge changes, none of them good for Miss Kopp or the female inmates.

As a new member of the Kopp Sisters Literary Society, I choose to receive the upcoming Kopp Sisters on the March. It was a happy day when the Advanced Reading Copy arrived with cool swag: a bandana, binocular key chain, bookmark, and a delicious chocolate bar! Yes--I ate the chocolate bar soon after opening the package. But after I had checked out the book!

Girl Waits With Gun by Amy Stewart

The Wednesday Afternoon Book Club at our local library read Amy Stewart's historical fiction novel Girls Waits With Gun this month. We won a "Kopp in a Box" book club kit with swag and a copy of the novel--and a Skype visit from Amy Stewart!

I had seen the rave reviews and was glad to finally read Girl Waits With Gun. Our group enjoyed the novel--one member even read the second book in the soon-to-be five-volume series! She especially recommends the audiobook.

The Kopp sisters are unforgettable characters. Their story begins in 1914 when an automobile hits their wagon on their way into town. The debilitated driver won't admit fault and reimburse them for the damage to their wagon. Constance pursues Mr. Kaufmann with a bill for $50. He responds by harassment and threats, including threatening the kidnapping of Fleurette for sale into White Slavery.

Constance visits the Kauffman Silk Mills and observes his treatment of the workers, learning of his sexual predation that results in pregnancies. When Constance discovers that one of his discarded lover's baby has disappeared she is moved to help find the child.

Constance is a spinster who towers over men and at 180 pounds can stand up to them as well.

Her sister Norma is sturdy and no-nonsense, a hard worker who enjoys raising pigeons.

The third "sister" Fleurette is a pampered and sheltered teenager who has a flair for dramatic fashions. Passed as a late in life child, she is unaware of the secret of her birth.

Stewart happened upon a newspaper story that caught her interest and she researched everything she could about the incident and the people involved, even interviewing living members of the Kopp family. The titles of the Kopp books are taken from actual newspaper article headlines.

Newspaper headline

Stewart was lively and well-spoken in the Skype visit and our group very much enjoyed talking with her. I highly recommend making use of her author visit.

Appearing in the novel is The Black Hand, an Italian criminal group that sends a paper with a black hand on it as a warning. One of our members told the story of her grandfather's ignoring The Black Hand warning and he later ended up dead.

We talked about the historically accurate aspects of the novel--anti-Semitism, the misogynistic treatment of women, how the Kopp sisters were bucking the norm by insisting on being self-supporting and living alone on a farm.

I have the next two books in the series waiting to be read...

Published in 2018 was Miss Kopp Just Won't Quit and Kopp Sisters on the March is coming out this year.

I look forward to reading more of the Kopp stories.