This is my second read in theGaslight Mystery series. This book was funnier than the other so I enjoyed that but it annoyed me that I had almost solved the mystery halfway through the book and Malloy and Sarah were sniffing out leads in the wrong places. I like the series because it covers 19th century New York and the characters are likable and interesting but I find that there isn't enough character development for the criminals. Maybe I'm being too tough on Thompson; wanting her to be like Carr? If so, I apologize! I already ordered a few others from this series on paperbackswap.com so I'll probably try at least one more. It was a decent read. ( )

#4 in the “gaslight” mystery series set in early 1900’s New York and featuring Sarah Brandt, a young widow and midwife. In this book, Sarah’s friend and neighbor Mrs. Ellsworth’s son Nelson is accused of murdering a young woman. Sarah and Detective Sergeant Malloy work to prove that he didn’t, and as they investigate, bits of interesting information about the woman come to light. As with many cozier mysteries, the actual mystery isn’t too hard to figure out here; the strength of the series is in the characters and the period descriptions. Enjoyable, light read as the others have been. ( )

This wasn't a bad story even if I did see the plot points drop on top of me as they were revealed. There were no real surprises here for me in the story the only surprise was how the main characters managed to miss some of the clues.

Sarah Brandt is a cool character. A midwife widow, whose doctor husband died before this story, and who has an ongoing relationship with the widower Detective Frank Malloy. The two of them work at investigating a murder of a woman, whose obvious murderer is her next-door neighbour Nelson Ellsworth, because she was pregnant. There are a lot of well drawn period details and it does take place at about the same time as Caleb Carr's books.

Still I did get some of the more obvious clues so the story didn't really surprise but the journey was interesting. ( )