Victoria Thompson (1) (1948–2024)

City of Fortune was an excellent addition to the Counterfeit Lady series. I loved the 1919 setting and the information about both horse racing and Womens' rights that were woven into the story.

Elizabeth Bates and her husband Gideon have been invited to the Belmont Stakes by Sebastian Nolan who is one on Gideon's clients. Elizabeth meets Nolan's daughter Irene who is extremely knowledgeable about horse racing and who happens to be in love with her father's jockey.

When chicanery happens which show more injures both horse and jockey, Elizabeth decides to run a con on Nolan to make things right for the young couple.

Luckily, she isn't the only one with a con in mind. Her father has arrived at the races with a woman who looks amazingly like Irene's mother and Nolan's first love. Only Irene's mother died in childbirth which created a bitter rivalry between Nolan and Daniel Livingston who was engaged to Irene's mother before Nolan swept her away.

Since the look-alike is also a con woman, it isn't hard to enlist her help in running a con on both Nolan and Livingston and a good part of the unsavory elements of New York Society too.

This story was a lot of fun to read. I loved the twists and turns and plots. show less

I couldn't resist taking Murder at St. Mark’s Place, book two of Victoria Thompson’s Gaslight Mystery series, from Hoopla this month. If book one was 3 1/2 bumped up to 4 stars – I found this one to be a solid 4+ stars. Reading/listening to this book was like slipping into a pair of flannel pajamas, warm fuzzy socks and climbing under the duvet in the middle of the afternoon, on a freezing winter day, to read just for the fun of it..you get it? (right?) I figured out whodunnit right at show more the beginning of the novel but I still enjoyed watching Sarah Bryant and Frank Malloy turn over every stone and examine every clue till they discovered who was murdering poor young girls trying to scrape by and improve their miserable existences in any way that they could. Sarah and Malloy are now familiar characters, doing what they do best, alternately sparring and agreeing with other (kind of Moonlighting/Remington Steele combos but at the turn of the century). I’m even falling in love with Sarah’s nosy neighbor. I love Mrs. Bryant for her independent spirit and moral code, for not being judgmental and for championing the rights of women without forfeiting her own humility while doing so, for always being willing to help no matter what the cost (sounds a little like Kipling’s “If”).

“….What right did she have to try to convince (xxx) to leave her home? Many would condemn her actions. She had, after all, tried to break up a marriage. Not many people would consider the fact that (xxx) had beaten his wife savagely as grounds for desertion. Many men beat their wives and consider it their right. The law in most cases supported them too. A man might go to jail for beating up a total stranger but if he did the same thing to his wife, the law would turn a blind eye, even if she died from her injuries. Just one more injustice to feel outraged about in an unjust world….”

Oh Sarah, what ageless truth you speak. Nary a week goes by without hearing a news report about a woman who was murdered by her partner or scorned lover. The reporting generally is accompanied by a description of multiple complaints to the police by the victim PRIOR to the final brutal act. Just one more injustice to feel outraged about in an unjust world.

I’m currently finishing (and enjoying) book three, but I will give myself a break from Sarah and Frank for a while thereafter … I don’t want to spoil the pleasure by overdosing and becoming immune to their charms. show less

Murder on St. Mark's Place is book two in Victoria Thompson's Gaslight Mystery series. Our heroine, widowed nurse-midwife Sarah Decker Brandt, is called to deliver Agnes Otto's third child. Poor Agnes is having to deal with being in labor at the same time that she's mourning the brutal murder of her younger sister, 16-year-old Gerda Reinhard.

Gerda had been sent to America in the hopes that she would find a husband as her sister had. Gerda had found a factory job, as girls did before they show more found a husband. As often true today, the workers weren't paid much -- certainly not a living wage. After the workday at Faircloth's, Gerda loved to go to dance halls with her friends. This is enough to put her in the category of 'bad girl' in the eyes of her brother-in-law and the neighbors. A good girl would have been home instead of being beaten to death in a filthy alley. She was identifiable because she was wearing red shoes. Gerda claimed to have saved up the money to buy them herself, but it was suspected that she had become a 'charity girl'. (Such girls assumed they were not prostitutes because they had sex for gifts instead of money.)

If you've ever read Hans Christian Andersen's 1845 cautionary tale, 'The Red Shoes,' then you have some idea of how shocking wearing red shoes was back in the 19th century. If not, the reactions of some of the supporting characters should make it clear that they were no footwear for a respectable girl.

Sarah asks for the help of our hero, Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy, because the murder is weighing on Agnes' spirits. Sarah fears that her new little girl will fail to thrive. Seeing their mother in such a state isn't helping her other two children, either. Agnes' husband, Lars, isn't being supportive. He won't even let Agnes openly grieve for her sister because Gerda has brought shame upon their family.

Sarah isn't familiar with dance halls, but she learns about them from Gerda's friends. She even visits one, although she has to wear a tacky hat and cheap beads to look less out of place. (Factory girls often skip lunch so they can afford to go to dance halls, so Sarah's offers to treat them to food while they chat are most welcome.)

While talking to Gerda's friends in chapter two, Sarah learns something unexpected that raises the stakes for anyone who cares about the welfare of the charity girls.

Gerda's souvenir photograph from Coney Island provides an excuse for Ms. Thompson to have her main characters visit the place and describe it for us. (Read the author's note for a liberty she took with historical accuracy.) Coney Island's brand of fun is looked down upon by the upper crust, so Sarah's never been there before. When Sarah and Frank visit Coney Island, she meets a fellow Knickerbocker, Dirk Schyler. What was Dirk doing there?

In book one we met Frank's three-year-old son, Brian, whose birth caused his beloved Kathleen's death. Like Colin Craven in that childhood classic, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Brian is the living image of his beautiful mother. Brian has a club foot, so he can only crawl. Frank and his widowed mother, who looks after the boy, think Brian is feeble-minded. Sarah isn't so sure. This time she visits to observe Brian. What she tells Frank is hard for him to believe. Could Sarah be right? It's an interesting subplot.

By the way, there really was a heat wave in Eastern North America, including New York City, in 1896. Luckily, the book tells us it's early July. The murderous ten days will happen in August. Almost as many New Yorkers will die as passengers and crew died when the Titanic sank.

NOTES:

Chapter 1:

a. St. Mark's Place is the heart of New York City's 'Little Germany'.

b. It's no mistake when the author describes Gerda as having blond hair instead of 'blonde'. 'Blonde' is the feminine noun form. The adjective form is the same as the masculine noun form, 'blond'. (They're French words and French is big on masculine and feminine forms.)

c. See book one, Murder on Astor Place, for Sarah being locked in an interrogation room at police headquarters.

d. While Brian's curls are still red-gold, his eyes are green instead of blue in this book. That will be corrected in a later book.

e. Look here for another of Mrs. Elsworth's superstitions, this one involving bubbles in a teacup. (Sarah's next-door neighbor's name won't be changed to 'Ellsworth' until book three, Murder on Gramercy Park. Her first name, Edna, won't be revealed until book twenty-two, Murder on Trinity Place.)

f. Interesting that Sarah can fry a pork chop better than Mrs. Malloy can in this book. In chapter 3 of book four, Murder on Washington Square, Frank doesn't think Sarah is as good a cook as his mother. Perhaps Sarah is just better at frying.

Chapter 2:

a. Sarah tells Frank why she thinks what she thinks about Brian.

b. I'm not surprised that the church Gerda's service is held at is the United German Lutheran Church. My late mother was born in Wisconsin in 1923. One of the summers we visited her parents in Appleton, she took us to see her girlhood church, St. Joseph's, some blocks away from Grandma & Grandpa Deschler's house. I asked why they attended there when my grandparents lived next door to St. Mary's. Mom told me that St. Joseph's was the German Catholic church and St. Mary's was the Irish one.

c. The murders definitely considered to be by Jack the Ripper took place in 1888. There were articles about him in American newspapers, too.

Chapter 3: Gerda's friend, Lisle Lasher, is paid $6 a week at Faircloth's. Her family lets her keep only a dollar or two, out of which she has to pay for lunch, trolley rides, and her clothes. Admission to a dance hall is 15 cents. Sarah's last suit cost her $7.50. (A shirtwaist is an old name for a blouse.)

Chapter 4:

a. We get more of Mrs. Elsworth's superstitions, these involving weddings.

b. Look here for some information about Coney Island.

Chapter 6: Mrs. Elsworth has a superstition involving buttons. Later in the chapter she talks about one involving a knife and a fork.

Chapter 8: Mrs. Elsworth explains how one must make corn dollies if they are to bring good luck.

Chapter 10: Mrs. Elsworth explains what it means to see a white cricket.

Chapter 13:

a. It's Mrs. Elsworth again, although it's about scissors this time.

b. Frank tells Sarah about how Kathleen died.

As usual with this series, one mystery was very easy to guess. As is also usual, Ms. Thompson got me with something I never saw coming until Sarah did. I love reading about late 19th Century New York City and I enjoy the main cast. This time it's her father that Sarah sees for the first time in three years. I enjoyed their argument until Elizabeth Decker put a stop to it in a way that made Sarah see her mother in a new light.

Also seen in a new light is Sarah's nosy and superstitious next-door neighbor, Mrs. Elsworth. I give her two enthusiastic thumbs up for the stunt she pulls in chapter 14. Sarah didn't do so bad herself in chapter 13. On the romantic front, Sarah and Frank are liking each other better than they want to, not that either is willing to let the other know that. As for the help Sarah gives Frank regarding his son, Brian, Frank thinks that solving the murder of Sarah's husband, Tom, should be a good way to pay her back. I definitely recommend this series to fans of historical mysteries. show less

I enjoyed this historical mystery that brings to light class distinctions, the control of husbands and fathers over their wives and daughters, police corruption, and societal judgments of unconventional roles and choices in the Victorian era in New York.

There are many mysteries featuring an amateur sleuth and a detective but this mystery totally captured my attention when Sergeant Frank Malloy is told by his superiors to stop investigating a murder and he encourages midwife Sarah Brandt to show more continue investigating. As Frank has promised to check in with Sarah every few days to see if she's learned anything Sarah's courage is bolstered and she admirably takes on the challenge.

With each step of the investigation, readers also learn more about the past histories of Frank Malloy and Sarah Brandt and essentially what motivates their actions going forward. They complement each other well and as a series opener it is heartwarming for the reader to anticipate their growth individually and together as the series continues.

I also found Sarah's nosy neighbor, Mrs. Elsworth and her superstition for every occasion to be an amusing addition to the storyline. Mrs. Elsworth made me wonder if she was the originator of many of the phrases designated as "Old Wives' Tales." show less