Shirley Tallman The Russian Hill Murders

The Russian Hill Murders

ISBN: 0312328575

In the nineteenth century, attorney Sarah Woolson struggles with the sexist attitude of her employer Joseph Shepard of Shepard, Shepard, McNaughton and Hall; he believes women belong at home not in the workplace. Joseph assigns Sarah to menial tasks in hopes of driving her out of his firm. In the few months at the law firm, Sarah has become disillusioned but refuses to allow this Neanderthal to drive her away.

Impoverished pregnant Lily Mankin "hires" Sarah to work her claim that her husband Jack and four other men died when the back exit of the workshop had been nailed shut so that he was unable escape an inferno. As Sarah seeks out Jack's former boss Paddy MacGuire and his cohort Killy Doyle, she is threatened to back off or else. Meanwhile Pierce Godfrey informs a choking Joseph that Allie, who he met at a charity gala in which his sister-in-law suddenly died, will handle his company's legal matters. Others involved with the fund raiser have also passed away mysteriously while Sarah also defends in the all male courtroom a Chinese cook accused of murder.

If Sarah's plate seems overwhelming to the reader, the above paragraphs hardly go into the depth of her activities. The storyline provides a deep look into sexism and racism in historical America, but does both in the confines of an exhilarating legal thriller; for instance through a short inset of the Pierce-Joseph debate which is an incredible look at business attitudes in the nineteenth century. Readers will gain immense pleasure from THE RUSSIAN HILL MURDERS as the heroine struggles with a male chauvinistic network while working hard to provide the best service to her clients.

Shirley Tallman

St. Martin's, Jul 2005, $23.95, 288 pp.

Harriet Klausner