Victoria Thompson, Murder on Lenox Hill

Victoria Thompson, Murder on Lenox Hill - Just back from delivering a baby boy, widow midwife Sarah Brandt returns home to the tenement apartment she shares with Maeve and four-year-old Aggie. Maeve informs her that a respectable looking older gent came by and left her note. Mr. and Mrs. Linton of the Upper East Side Manhattan neighborhood Lenox Hill would like her to visit them at her convenience.

Sarah takes the elevated train and a street car to the Lintons' home where they ask her to determine whether their beloved teenage daughter Gracie, who is mentally a young child, is pregnant. Sarah confirms that the teen is six months pregnant, but neither parent can understand when it could have happened because the child is never alone. Sarah asks her friend, police detective sergeant Frank Malloy, to investigate. Though no crime has been committed and no payment for his services will be remitted, Frank reluctantly agrees. However, someone poisons the minister of the congregation that the Lintons belong to. Frank and Sarah believe there is a link between the homicide and the pregnancy, but everyone connected seems so respectable.

Though a Gaslight era mystery, the events of MURDER ON LENOX HILL could have come out of recent headlines. The storyline is fast-paced with a strong, intrepid protagonist and a powerful, deep, secondary cast, including real figures like Commissioner Teddy Roosevelt. Readers will appreciate the "innocence" of Gracie and root for Sarah to learn who impregnated her and when since she already ruled out the obvious, fatherly incest. This is a tremendous entry in one of the best historical series on the market today and investigating her spouse's murder from four years ago may be next.

Berkley, Jun 2005, $23.95, 304 pp.

ISBN: 0425202607

Harriet Klausner