Thursday, May 15, 2014

Book Review: Murder in Murray Hill

Murder in Murray Hill (Gaslight Mystery, #16)Author: Victoria Thompson
Publication Date: May 6, 2014
Publisher: Berkley Hardcover
Series: Gaslight Mystery # 16


When facing injustice, the residents of nineteenth-century New York City’s tenements turn to midwife Sarah Brandt and Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy to protect their rights. Now, as the Edgar® and Agatha Award–nominated series continues, the two must track down a cruel criminal preying on the hopes and dreams of innocent women…

A Gaslight Mystery

Frank Malloy has never known any life other than that of a cop, but his newfound inheritance threatens his position within his department. While trying to keep both his relationship with Sarah and his fortune under wraps, he’s assigned to a new case—finding a missing young woman for her worried father, Henry Livingston.

It seems the girl had been responding to “lonely hearts” ads in the paper for months before she disappeared. Her father thinks that she’s eloped with a deceptive stranger, but Malloy fears the worst, knowing that the grifters who place such ads often do much more than simply abscond with their victims. But as Sarah and Malloy delve deeper into a twisted plot targeting the city’s single women, it’s their partnership—both professional and private—that winds up in the greatest peril…


Frank just hoped they would find her alive.

“My life won’t be worth living. So I have to tell her today.”


This time the blood really did drain from his mother’s face, and from her head, too, because she slumped to the floor in a dead faint.

This series is a step above what I would classify as a cozy mystery series. However, I will say that they are just as good and always has been one of my favorite series to read and follow. The characters are engaging and the plot hardly ever leaves me disappointed. I just hate that I have to wait an entire year for each new book to be released. In this installment, Frank and Sarah’s relationship has progressed even more and now the two must find a way to tell Frank’s mother about their upcoming nuptials. Not to mention there is a killer on the loose and the two must work together to save and protect the women that have been kidnapped.

Frank and Sarah are two extraordinary characters, and their relationship has been fun to follow and watch grow. They both compliment the other and this is especially charming when they are working together to solve a mystery. Frank and Sarah are so convincing in all that they say and do. Their trials and triumphs will just make you love them all the more. If you are not Team Frank and Sarah by the time you finish one book, then we need to have a very serious convo!

Nineteenth century New York City is a place that I would love to visit. I feel like even though I have read several books in this series, Thompson always gives me something new and exciting as far as the setting is concerned. Everything is written to be so believable and so realistic. The detail is to die for; I love books where I have to stop and picture what is going on around me because the imagery is just so vivid.


***A free copy of this book was provided to me by the publishers at Berkley in exchange for my honest review***





No comments:

Post a Comment