The Bletchley Circle (2012- 2014) and The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco (2018 - current)

In season 2 of Agent Carter episode 4 "Smoke and Mirrors" we see some of Peggy Carter's life before the events of Captain America: The First Avenger.  She's engaged to be married and breaking codes at Bletchley House.  She gets the offer to join SOE (Special Operations Executive) an offer she originally refuses but eventually takes ending her engagement.  The rest for her is history, working with SSR and later SHIELD.

Airing before Agent Carter on BBC, The Bletchley Circle shows us what Peggy Carter's life might have been like had she not taken the SOE job - a civilian life as a housewife who can't even tell her husband what she did in the war.

This is the case for Susan Gray (Anna Maxwell-Martin who played Elizabeth Darcy in Death Comes to Pemberley).  It's 1952 and she's following a series of murders in the news and notices that the killer has a pattern but there is a gap, possibly a missing vicitim.

Her husband served with a Scotland Yard Commissioner and he gets her an interview.  While she can't reveal her history, the commissioner is able to guess at her history.   The police search where her pattern suggests the body may be but they come up empty handed. But Susan can't leave it alone and calls in several of her old colleagues from Bletchley House to help her.  Lucy (Sophie Rundle), Jean McBrian (Julie Graham) and Millie Harcourt (Rachel Stirling) all pitch in and help solve the mystery.  This mystery is the three episode first season.

The second season  of four episodes has the circle working to clear Alice Merren, another Bletchley alum, from a murder charge at the end of that case Susan leaves to join her husband in the Foreign Service.  Alice then joins the circle for their next mystery when Millie is kidnapped.

The show was then revived for an American spinoff - with Jean and Millie heading to San Francisco when they hear about a murder in that city that has several similiarities to a murder during their Bletchley days.  In San Francisco, they track down some of their American counterparts from the Presidio, Iris Bearden (Crystal Balint) and Hailey Yarner (Chanelle Peloso) and try to find the killer.  The eight episodes had the new circle solving four cases.  Reportedly we are getting a new season this year.

I'd heard of both shows but when they originally aired, I must have missed them.  But I decided to watch them when they turned up on Netflix and enjoyed both shows.

Rachel Stirling's Millie Harcourt  was a standout for me reminding me somewhat of Miss Fisher.  I thought that the actress looked familiar but couldn't find anything in her filmography that I had seen but was pleasantly surprised to find that she was the daughter of Dame Diana Rigg, Mrs Peel herself.

I'm glad this turned up on Netflix and was an enjoyable watch,  I found that San Francisco could get a little preachy but I still look forward to further seasons, who knows maybe they can get Hayley Atwell for a cameo.

White Flesh, Black Market: Spies in the House of Lust Book 1 (2013) Barbra Novac, Wah Wah Funk Publishing

So you might be wondering why I started the Sexy September tag here on the blog and reposted several of my old reviews that covered some of the more risqué books. 

Well it turns out that I'm not the only one fond of sexy heroines fighting crime or spying.  The Baroness Yahoo Group suggested these books.  The Baroness is a definite inspiration for this book as is Modesty Blaise and Mrs Peel (from The Avengers TV series)

The novel opens with the death of a group of  KGB agents including a couple of  American moles during an orgy.  The Russian detective Vicar Grogshh Hotly Irk is assigned to the case.  He is contacted by ROTA and is informed that this was part of a larger plot with the death of 250 agents around the world on both sides of the political divide. 

ROTA (we are not told what it stands for) is sending their top agents DISC

Porshe Worthington - Blonde, owner and editor in chief of Voir magazine, widow of William Marlowe.

Aston Knight - French scientific genius and model.

Mercedes Merlin - Waif like red haired model, an orphan who travelled and trained in China.

The first instalment introduces the agents and gets them into their various assignments as the villain is suspected immediately.  I felt a little disappointed at the end of this volume as it felt like the story had just gotten started, the players all in place.  Porshe was meeting with Clon Daedalus, Mercedes arrives on his private island and Aston is undercover with the Russian mob who are looking to buy Daedalus's technology.

Barbra Novac does a really great job introducing the main characters and giving us several sex scenes that felt were part of the plot and not just thrown in for the sake of having a sex scene.

I should also mention how much I love the covers for this story.  If you are a fan of sexpionage adventures of The Baroness or the espionage adventures of The Avengers and Modesty Blaise I would whole heartedly suggest getting this book but be aware that this is one adventure across three books.