You might think that a tale revolving around old letters and stained glass windows (in a cemetery, no less) would be peaceful and leisurely. Well, not in Brooklyn. There's beauty, yes, and some dust, but little peace for Erica Donato, who's got a dissertation to finish, a part-time job that's just been complicated by a pompous academic, a teenage daughter (need I say more?), and unpleasant dramas ripping through her neighborhood and personal life. There's a lot to enjoy here about the evolution of Brooklyn up to the current day, and how this enormous, diverse borough keeps being shaped and remade by the people who decide to make it their home.

I loved the way the issue of grieving was addressed. Sometimes, in soft-boiled mysteries, the deaths of characters seem not to be anything more than plot points, excuses for the story to begin. Erica's own grief over the loss of her daughter's father years ago is triggered by the loss of a family friend, another father and husband. The way she negotiates her own memories with her daughter, and tries to reach out to a family whose grief she understands too well is handled very sensitively and realistically, I think, which added depth to the story and a parallel line of contemporary family drama to the ones suspected in the past. Come for the mystery, stay for the history!