The Death of Dora Black, my debut murder mystery, is inspired by the true story of Adelaide's pioneering policewoman Kate Cocks.
I first learned about South Australia’s Fanny Kate Boadicea Cocks by accident – I happened across a Tweet about South Australia’s pioneering policewoman in 2020 and was soon so intrigued that I decided to explore her story as part of a PhD.
In 1915, unmarried and 40 years of age, Kate Cocks became the first policewoman in the British Empire employed on the same salary as men, and with the same powers of arrest. When she wasn’t rescuing young women from Adelaide’s opium dens, she was finding jobs for wayward youths and arresting clairvoyants preying on the grieving wives of soldiers missing in action. But most of the time she walked the beat, protecting women from excitable young army recruits and from themselves, whether they liked it or not.
The Death of Dora Black is a fictional murder mystery inspired by Kate Cocks’ true story. It introduces a new detective duo in Miss Cocks and her sassy junior constable Ethel Bromley, a jujitsu expert with a fondness for tall men who don’t ask to meet her father.
Published by the awesome team at Hachette Australia, it's out now. The second book in the Petticoat Police Mystery series, Murder on North Terrace, is coming in 2025.