I'm a big fan of series novels; Susan Elia MacNeal's MAGGIE HOPE series, Deanna Raybourn's VERONICA SPEEDWELL series, M.C.Beaton's AGATHA RAISIN series, Louise Penny's INSPECTOR GAMACHE series; and so, I am always looking for another group of characters who I can rely on.

I'm not sure, yet, about Genevieve Stewart and Daniel McCaffrey. To begin with, early on, a sentence described one character looking at another "with avarice" --- which made no sense. It wasn't a look to do with covetousness or greed, and the use was jarring --- it seemed an editor had missed this, missed saying, "I don't think that's actually what you mean."

Too, the word thrum (and its forms) overused and not, in some instances, correctly --- or, well. There were a number of other such editing instances, and they distracted from the story.

The plotting felt thin, and some actions --- and circumstances --- felt either unmotivated or extremely unlikely.

Nonetheless, there was much to enjoy. Further character development and more careful attention to adjectival and adverbial over-use and awkward use would greatly benefit the series. Will I read the second one?

I'm not sure. Am I sorry I read this one? No. Would I recommend it. Also, not sure.

So I received this ARC from NetGalley and Crooked Lane books. It was a very fun story with a lot going on. It reminded me of The Alienist tv show... dark, love interests, guy from the wrong side of the tracks with new money... it was really a solid 3.5 stars but I couldn’t drop it. Those that like a simple plot with no twists and turns, keep moving, this mystery takes you on a journey for sure!

Slow and predictable and I didn't really see that the heroine was gaslit - at least not in the classic Hitchcock way.

Fun historical mystery!

Really enjoyable historical mystery. It started a bit slow in the beginning but once it began the story really took off. I enjoyed how character driven Belli made the story and wove emotional stories through the mystery.

I wanted to like this. I love historical fiction mysteries. I just found too much that is just not to my tastes. I’m going to post spoilers to the mysteries of this book in case anyone as annoyed as I was wants to know who did what.

First some grievances…


I don’t don’t like it when the strong female character is an absolute reckless idiot. In the beginning she meets Daniel because some of his guys were gossiping about the hottest news story going on at the time. She goes to a shitty alley in some slum of NYC at the time BY HERSELF and UNARMED on some gossip. Sure.

Another review suggested that maybe Daniel’s weird combination of a character is a compromise instead of a love triangle (the classic lower class guy and upper class guy thing.) it does seem super slap-dash with Daniel. Because spoiler he’s not even related to his benefactor his older sister mysteriously got a job with the old man out of nowhere then had an affair with him. It’s not that he’s low class and high class - one of my favorite heroes in another series was a sort of low high class hybrid (but he was an illegitimate child which makes more sense)

The author is really good at writing visually - I felt like I could see the garments described, but most things related to people seemed stunted somehow.

Like the stereotypical quirky family felt like it belongs in a YA historical fiction mystery - maybe it’d be better were it adapted as such.

I’m sure there are better critiques elsewhere. I do want to mention the romance seemed very tell-not-show. They mentioned so many times their feelings in thoughts and didn’t really show it as much.

Spoilers:

Guy who attacked her in the records room: Clive

Men who were following her in town: men sent by Daniel to watch over and inadvertently terrorize her (and Daniel didn’t think to tell her of this)

Robin Hood: Rupert - the jerkbag Englishman who is a kleptomaniac

Those are the harder to find spoilers as far as review skimming goes. Obviously there’s Mead and that whole big scam to make money from shitty tenement housing - all on that board besides the old dude Genevieve knew were in on it hence his murder. Pretty sure Mead killed Esme’s mother. It might have stated it outright I kind of got annoyed with this and just listened for the big answers.

I thought I might like this due to my interest in The Gilded Age and Historical Mysteries but there’s just a lot that doesn’t work for me. Not bad writing, perhaps bad characterization and plotting though. Oh well.

3.5/5- moved a little slow for me but I'm willing to try the second book