Good, Clean Fun: a Meh-rathon

A letter for Alicia Prescott to Gilbert Oliphant (author of the Father Hansen’s Adventures series)

Dame Loraine Bridewell was as glorious as you’d imagine. Truly, she is of a different time and occupies a different echelon of society than you or I. I imagine she had money even before she wrote the first of the Horse Inspector Bradley books. And god knows they’ve contributed a pretty penny to her bottom line.

At any rate, after the reading, she insisted on going somewhere out of the public eye. I invited her to my apartment. There, we drank port and ate pistachios and talked about the industry. I had a little bowl out for the shells, and at one point, with the port having gone a bit to her head, Dame Loraine accidentally knocked it over. She apologized, but then grew sullen when I took out my tattered old broom. “You, the supposed queen of clean, use that to clean up?” she said, with sheer disgust. It was so embarrassing! I must get a better solution for these things!

What better day for a spring-cleaning-themed Meh-ration than March 12th, the birthday of author Alicia Prescott? Creator of the character Ms. Theroux, the mystery-solving maid who appears in over 40 novels, Prescott has come to be known as “the queen of clean” in literary circles. So, stick around all day as we share excerpts from Prescott’s work, as well as tidbits from her letters, interviews, reviews, and more. Oh, and there will be deals too. On cleaning products. And also non-cleaning products.