Publisher's Weekly Review
At the start of Edgar-finalist Thompson's solid 21st mystery set in gaslight-era New York City (after 2017's Murder in the Bowery), Sarah Brandt and her PI husband, Frank Malloy, are finalizing the adoption of Catherine, a child Sarah rescued and has been raising as her own. All the couple have to do is get Catherine's legal guardian-actor Parnell Vaughn, who doesn't want anything to do with the girl-to relinquish his parental rights. When Vaughn's fiancée insists on a financial settlement, Sarah and Frank agree. But when Frank brings the money to Vaughn, Frank finds him beaten to death and becomes the prime suspect in his murder. Sarah and Frank must go behind the scenes of the cutthroat theater district to uncover the real killer. Meanwhile, Sarah is busy with the opening of a maternity clinic on the Lower East Side that will provide free services for women in need. Thompson's command of period detail and her insight into such issues as the era's blatant sexism put her in the forefront of historical mystery writers. Agent: Nancy Yost, Nancy Yost Literary Agency. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
A police officer-turned-private eye is accused of murder.Beating the odds against their unlikely union, Irish PI Frank Malloy and midwife Sarah, the eccentric daughter of a society family, have tied the knot and are hoping to adopt Catherine (Murder in the Bowery, 2017, etc.), the illegitimate child of late actress Emma Hardy, whom Sarah has been raising. Frank and Sarah are now extremely well-off, but there's an obstacle: Because Emma was still married to an actor named Parnell Vaughn when Catherine was born, he is the child's father under the law, even though her actual father was a wealthy businessman who's also died. Vaughn is willing to sign away his parental rights, but his greedy girlfriend, Eliza Grime, insists on payment. When Frank goes to the theater where Vaughn is working to make that payment, he finds him beaten to death. Accused by Eliza, Frank is arrested but is soon back on the street, eager to prove his innocence. Scorning the few well-placed bribes that would ensure that his case never came to trial, he resolves to find the killer for his family's sake. With help from his partner, Gino Donatelli, and their outspoken nanny, Maeve, who pose as reporters, Frank soon finds plenty of other candidates. Theater gossip indicates that Vaughn, a talented actor with a drinking problem, has been maintaining his position as leading man by servicing the leading lady, the well-respected Mrs. Adelia Hawkes, before each performance. It's hard for the sleuths to believe that her husband, producer Baxter Hawkes, wouldn't be jealous, but apparently this was a long-standing duty of all Adelia's leading men. Even so, there's enough jealousy around the theater to make it hard to pick out the motive for murder.The exotic mores of New York circa 1900 furnish a colorful background for the veteran sleuths as they seek to unmask a killer;Thompson provides fans with an update on their favorite characters.
Booklist Review
Frank and Sarah Malloy return in the twenty-first Gaslight Mystery, although they are now in a twentieth-century New York City lit by electricity, and they are contemplating the purchase of an automobile. They have come a long way since Frank was a penniless policeman and young midwife Sarah was determined to establish a modern maternity hospital. She has finally fulfilled that dream, and her first patient is Serina Straface, the medium whom readers met in Murder on Waverly Place (2009). Serina is pressed into service to conduct a rigged séance to unmask the murderer of actor Parnell Vaughn, the father of Frank and Sarah's ward, Catherine, first introduced in Murder in Chelsea (2013). As with Rhys Bowen's Molly Murphy novels and Anne Perry's Charlotte and Thomas Pitt series, Thompson's fans have been able to witness her fine ensemble cast grow and mellow through time. Even Sarah's once-forbidding mother is now an eager participant in her daughter's investigations. The stories continue to be engrossing and rich in historical detail as each illuminates another corner of the metropolis.--Murphy, Jane Copyright 2018 Booklist
