Books like A Jury of Her Peers

4.5★“‘No telling; you women might come upon a clue to the motive--and that's the thing we need.’ Mr. Hale rubbed his face after the fashion of a showman getting ready for a pleasantry. ‘But would the women know a clue if they did come upon it?’ he said; . . .”What a satisfying treat this was! And perfectly named. Based on Susan Glaspell’s 1916 play Trifles, this is the story of a farmer, John Wright, found dead by his neighbour, Mr. Hale, who had stopped by to talk to him about putting in a telephone. No phones out that way so far. The following day, the sheriff stops by to collect Hale and has asked Mrs. Hale to go with them to keep his own wife company. When they arrive at the Wright farm, Hale is asked by the county attorney, who is there also, to describe what he found the previous day.“Mrs. Hale, still leaning against the door, had that sinking feeling of the mother whose child is about to speak a piece. Lewis often wandered along and got things mixed up in a story. She hoped he would tell this straight and plain, and not say unnecessary things . . .”It’s obvious from the telling that he’s used to spinning a long yarn, but we learn that the new widow was sitting in the kitchen and spoke calmly to him while fidgeting with her fingers. Mrs. Hale had been schoolfriends with Molly Wright and always meant to call by but never did. When questioned about their connection, Mrs. Hale says simply that the Wright place didn’t seem very cheerful. This remark is jumped on.“‘You mean they didn't get on very well?’ he was quick to ask. ‘No; I don't mean anything,’ she answered, with decision. As she turned a little away from him, she added: ‘But I don't think a place would be any the cheerfuller for John Wright's bein' in it.’The men go upstairs to inspect the scene, and Hale makes the crack about women and clues. Meanwhile, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, the sheriff’s wife, look around at the unfinished chores and share a sense of the situation.“It was as if something within her not herself had spoken, and it found in Mrs. Peters something she did not know as herself.”My, how times have changed! We have so many popular books about female detectives that it’s almost hard to remember how automatically dismissive men were of women’s intellectual capabilities. And these women, sensing something unusual about themselves, might not find these feelings unusual today, (especially if they were readers of crime fiction). This is a wonderful, short read, and I thank the Reading for Pleasure Group’s “Breakfast Club” for this link to the free story online. There are other short stories there, too. https://americanliterature.com/author...Here’s the discussion of the current Breakfast Club stories.https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...