Breakaway Books

Authored by Cathy Pegau; Published September 2025; Mystery

⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️🏖️🏖️

A Murderous Business is an easy mystery to power your way through. There’s no gray morality or vicious antiheroes, just right, wrong, and powerful women.

In A Murderous Business, early twentieth century businesswoman Margot Harriman is shocked to discover Mrs. Gilroy, her father’s right hand woman, dead with a mysterious note to Margot in her hand, cryptically claiming knowledge of ongoing life-threatening behavior. Margot is already struggling to take over her father’s business in a climate that is less than friendly to women in charge. Any scandal would surely bring her down, and so she seeks the assistance of private detective Rett Mancini—who is having her own issues with business. Together, the two must find out if there really are misdeeds occurring at Margot’s company and if they can stop them.

I know that I classified this novel as a mystery, but this is definitely a book to read for the turn of the century vibes. It’s not fully period-accurate, surely, but sometimes, the romanticized version of the past is good for a little escapism. Layer on top of that adventurous gay women who are trying to pursue love and careers they’ve always dreamt of in tough fields, and the realism fades away a little more. For me, though, it wasn’t so egregious that it affected my enjoyment of the novel. I felt almost empowered by these women who would not let fathers or colleagues or bosses stand in the way of what they wanted to do with their lives. The only real bone I have to pick with the novel is the ending, which I found just a little too rosy for my liking. 

The mystery itself isn’t particularly complex or meticulously crafted, and if what you’re looking for is a good puzzle, I wouldn’t pick this one off the shelf. It’s light and easy, in spite of the fact that it takes place largely in a canning factory, a place sometimes known for its brutality. I was worried that I would learn all sorts of facts about canning and food production violations that I didn’t want to know, but the book leaned all the way in the other direction, notably vague about life in the canning factory. It’s also notably vague about any prejudice Rett may have faced for her relationship with her girlfriend, barring one horrific encounter with her father.

A Murderous Business is not a challenging mystery, but it’s a good one if you’re looking to squeeze in one last beach read, especially if you like early 1900s vibes.