|
[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
Nicholas Ellsworth, banker, asks his neighbor widowed midwife Sarah Brandt for help. Anna Blake has told Ellsworth she is pregnant but, to his confusion, refuses to marry him, and he is afraid of what his mother, with whom he lives, would think of him if he fathers a child and does not marry the woman involved. They go to Blake's boarding house and Sarah is confused. Anna looks like the young innocent she purports to be but why does she refuse to wed? The next day, Blake's body is found near the 'hanging tree' in Washington Square Park, and Nicholas is arrested for the murder. Sarah enlists the aid of her friend, Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy, who gets Ellsworth released from jail temporarily, while he and Sarah search for the real murderer. This is the 4th "Gaslight Mystery" by Victoria Thompson. The flavor of turn-of-the-century New York City pervades the story. The characters and their relationships are clearly limned. Sarah "married beneath her" and her changed circumstances, which her parents choose to misunderstand, allow her to see very clearly, the problems of the poor and bemoan the isolation of the wealthy, but she should have seen Blake for what she was sooner. The story is brought to a satisfactory conclusion, but perhaps Brandt is a bit too naive.
Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, April 2002
[ Top ]
QUICK SEARCH:
Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]
| 
