In Chinatown to deliver a baby, Sarah Brandt meets a group of women she might otherwise never have come across: Irish girls who, after alighting on Ellis Island alone, have married Chinese men in the same predicament. But with bigotry in New York from every side, their mixed-race children are often treated badly, by the Irish, the Chinese—even the police. When the new mother’s half-Chinese, … half-Chinese, half-Irish, 15-year-old niece goes missing, Sarah knows that alerting the constables would prove futile. So she turns to Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy—and together they begin the search themselves. And after they find her, dead in an alley, Sarah and Malloy have ample suspects—from both sides of Canal Street.
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After a recent close call, midwife Sarah Brandt has vowed to stay away from solving crimes and getting involved in anything dangerous. However, she is in Chinatown with the Lee family since Cora Lee is about to give birth and gets a front row to the family drama unfolding. Cora’s niece, Angel, is upset that her father has arranged a marriage for her to an older man and runs away. The family is frantic to find her because the city is no place for a fifteen-year-old to be alone. While the family does find her, she turns up dead a few days later. Sarah manages to get NYPD Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy involved in the case because she fears other police won’t care to fully investigate given who the victim was. But can Malloy figure it out? Will Sarah get involved despite her promise to stay away from murder?
Once again, we are expertly transported back to 1890’s New York City. Along with our normal glimpses of life during the time period, we get to see a bit of how the Chinese were treated during the time; unfortunately, it isn’t pretty. However, the book never stops to preach at us, instead working this in during the mystery. The case itself is strong with plenty of twists to keep us entertained until the end. I thought I had a few things figured out, but I discovered I was wrong when I reached the logical ending. Sarah, in her efforts to stay out of the case, isn’t quite as involved as Frank, but she still has plenty to contribute. Both are great lead characters, and I enjoyed spending time with the regular supporting players as well as meeting the new characters introduced here. We get some advancement on a couple of on-going storylines, and it looks like one of them will be the main focus of the next in the series. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing where that leads.
After being pressured by her family to marry an older Chinese gentleman, a young lady leaves home. Sarah happens to be assisting in a family birth at the time so she naturally jumps in to help. When more questions arise, she asks for detective Malloy’s advice and before long, he’s up to his neck in trying to solve the case, which just gets crazier by the chapter. I had this one figured out long before Frank or Sarah, but enjoyed learning about the exclusion of Chinese women to the U.S. There’s always something fascinating to learn in this historic series, so on I go to the next book.
Such a great series!
Another great Frank and Sarah story!
Murder in Chinatown, Gaslight Mystery #9, by Victoria Thompson, is as entertaining as all the others in this series! 1890’s New York City is the usual setting, but this time the reader is shown the life in Chinatown —for the Asians and the poor Irish immigrants. I had not realized that Irish women often married the Chinese men during that period–when female Chinese were not allowed visas in the hopes the men would leave the US and return home. Racism of many kinds is part of our tarnished past , as a nation. I love the history woven into these novels. The mystery portion of the story is well plotted and hard to untangle. I highly recommend these fast paced novels.