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Midwife Sarah Brandt is in Chinatown delivering Cora Lee's baby. Cora is an Irish woman married to a Chinese man. Americans were afraid of people of color, then as now, so although Chinese men were allowed into the US to work, it was thought that if Chinese women were excluded, under the Exclusion Act of 1882, the men would eventually return to China. Instead, they married women from other countries. Cora had looked around and had seen that if she married an Irishman, she would be a slave to his needs and desires, and would be living in extreme poverty, never going anywhere, never having money for anything, and having to work in a sweat shop or doing piecework for the rest of her life. The Chinese men didn't marry until they could support a wife nicely. Her apartment is well-furnished with carpets and good furniture and only Cora and her husband living there, not seven or eight other members of the family. They figured it was better to endure the prejudice than the poverty. Angel Lee, Cora's 15-year-old 'niece' comes to visit. She is a beautiful half-Chinese girl, the daughter of Minnie Mae Lee, who lives in an apartment in the same building, and who is Cora's 'mother-in-law.' A few days later, Minnie Mae comes to Sarah distraught. Angel has disappeared. Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy, Sarah's friend, is in charge of the case and tries to keep Sarah out of it but she insists on helping search for Angel. Sarah has taken in two children from the Mission she supports – Maeve, who is about Angel's age, and five-year-old mute, Catherine. Maeve gives Sarah some idea of where to search for Angel. This is the ninth in the series set in turn-of-the-century New York. In each, Thompson explores a different facet of life in the city and gives us an insight into how our parents and grandparents may have lived when they first came to the United States. Although I usually don't care for cozies, this series has me hooked.
Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, May 2007
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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