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Though THE FATAL FLAME is not, strictly speaking, a tragedy, many readers may feel it is once they discover this is the last time they will read a novel about Timothy Wilde, the short, scarred, and strangely poetic narrator of this superior trilogy of historical mysteries. For fans of the subgenre, the historical setting is a draw, as it is full of pungent details and a strong sense of time and place. Fans of inventive and eloquent writing will mostly miss the narrator's unforgettable voice.
Each of these books has focused on a theme that links present-day issues with New York City's history, opening chapters with evocative quotations from primary sources. The first book probed hostility towards immigrants, the second tackled the slave trade and the way New York authorities collaborated with it. This entry is about the early women's rights movement and the use of young women's labor in the textile industry. It is less thematically-driven than the previous two books, with a slimmer plot and a fair amount of time devoted to a struggle for power within Tammany Hall and the relationships between Timothy, his landlady, and his infuriating but beloved brother Valentine. Silkie Marsh, a beautiful and dangerous brothel owner, makes a return, as does Timothy's greatest love, Mercy Underhill, whose writing career in London has collapsed just as her mind has begun to betray her.
Timothy's most urgent case is one that involves his greatest enemy – fire. Someone is burning down New York properties, and a note he receives points to a woman who has been publishing inflammatory pamphlets. She wears britches and holds scandalous opinions about the rights of women and even a close friend worries she might be using more than words to inflame the city. This case has a personal dimension for Timothy, who bears the scars of fires that consumed lower Manhattan and took his parents' lives. It continues to smolder in the self-destructive behavior of his older brother who secretly carries a burden of guilt for his parents' death. Complicating it all is the fact that Valentine has declared himself a political candidate against a corrupt tycoon. Yet somehow the truth of the fires is lurking in the weird and seemingly unhinged ramblings of a young Irish immigrant who begins the investigation by giving Timothy a note she cannot read, along with a strange story about a witch in the heart of the city.
It would be wise to read the previous books in the trilogy, THE GODS OF GOTHAM and SEVEN FOR A SECRET, to get the full impact of the recurring characters' stories, which are rather more important in this volume than the crime under investigation. That is no hardship, as they are all worth reading, particularly for the language that includes "flash" criminal slang documented by the city's first police commissioner. It's never intrusive (and in fact plays a role in a scene in which the brothers need to communicate in the presence of an enemy) but it's handy to have an excerpt from this "rogue's lexicon" included in the book. It will be interesting to see where Lyndsay Faye takes her considerable talent next.
§ Barbara Fister is an academic librarian, columnist, and author of the Anni Koskinen mystery series.
Reviewed by Barbara Fister, May 2015
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