Murder on Marble Row

[cornerofmadness]

Murder on Marble Row by Victoria Thompson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This 3.5 read got rounded up as I'm coming into a series with book 6. (This came to me in a neat way as a gift your gifter tells the company your tea/reading preferences and they select a tea cup/tea/used book) So maybe I wouldn't have had a few issues I did because I wasn't as familiar with Sarah and Malloy's relationship.

This is set during Teddy Roosevelt's term of being the big boss of the police enacting tons of reforms so late 1800s early 1900s and he's assigned Frank Malloy to investigate the bomb related death of a wealthy business man Van Dyke. They believe it is anarchists often referring to the stabbing of Henry Frick (me sitting here smiling at the irony as I was just at Frick's house here in Pittsburgh) That his son Creighton has taken up with the anarchists after falling in love with one of them only strengthens this thought process.

Sarah doesn't believe her childhood friend is capable of blowing up his own father and starts to try to help (my biggest issue is how annoyed Malloy is with Sarah but if I'm honest that is exactly what would have happened especially in this time period). Being a midwife to the poor immigrants, Sarah has an in with the people on the lower east side so she can get to the anarchists to question them more easily than a police man could.

And there is no dearth of suspects. Van Dyke was not a nice man. Neither is his business partner (and they hated each other), his financial advisor has reasons too as he's in love with Alberta, Van Dyke's daughter (way above the man's station), his younger drunken spoiled son, Tad and the man's young wife who sleeps around, and of course, the anarchists.

To be honest, I knew exactly who had placed the bomb from the autopsy forward but I still enjoyed the mystery. Sarah is a fun character. Malloy's not bad. I would read more of this.



View all my reviews