I really liked the way Carole Lawrence evoked the Manhattan world of the late 19th century. Within this milieu she has placed a plot that requires little effort from the reader as it follows a linear path towards a quick conclusion. ( )

Our heroine is a young woman born into society who could do nothing more than marry well but she wanted more. So she pursued a career in journalism but was constantly sent to cover the lunches and soirees of the people in her set – just what she wanted to get away from. But fate has so much more in store for her.

What follows is a fast paced, fun (if you can call a murder mystery fun) to read book that takes the reader through both the slums and high society of late 19th century New York. It is well written and very well researched.

Elizabeth is a young woman of privilege but she wants to do more with her life than just attend teas and marry well. As she follows the trail of the murderer she learns more about the other side of society than she ever wanted to know and the reader is shown the dark side of turn of the century New York.

At times not easy to read but definitely well worth reading and it rather leaves the feeling that perhaps more books will follow. I sure hope so as Elizabeth is the kind of character that you root for and definitely would like to follow again in another adventure. ( )

Elizabeth Van den Broek is a journalist for the New York Herald in New York City in the 1880s when and where women were not supposed to work in that field. She is a graduate of Vassar College and got her position due to the influence of her family. On her way to the paper one morning, she sees a possible assault in a 3rd floor window of a tenement and the next day while walking with a friend finds the body of a woman in the excavation being done for Cleopatra's Needle. The book chronicles her investigation of the murder and others that follow it. ( )

This was my Amazon First Reads choice for March 2022.

I made it about 20% of the way through this book before I had to DNF. There simply wasn't anything that kept my interest enough to actually finish, and what little there was within those first pages was eye-roll inducing enough to let me know that this won't be a DNF I'll be going back to for another shot.

Elizabeth, the protagonist, simultaneously is a "modern woman" and yet clings to the propriety of the time; while this contrast could be something interesting for Lawrence to explore, it instead comes off as juvenile and Mary Sue-esque. Rather than making choices for herself, things simply seem to happen to Elizabeth: if she is such an independent woman, why is she not making her own choices? Everything she does rails against what Lawrence plainly tells us about her - and there is a lot of telling rather than showing. As a result, Elizabeth comes off as entitled, whiny, and unlikable in a way that made me uninterested in her story and whatever she had to say.

I won't comment much on the plot, because to be frank, not a whole lot happened in the fraction of the book I read; Lawrence instead spent a lot of time with clunky descriptions that really didn't do much for me in the way of putting me in the moment. The mystery itself certainly doesn't get started in the section I read, which makes me wonder why the story starts where it does.

I wouldn't recommend this book, which is unfortunate because I'd like to think there was something redeemable about it. But with a boring protagonist and a plot that feels meaningless, why would a reader continue trudging on past a certain point? ( )

It was oK. Great descriptions of NY City in that period. ( )