In the Shadow of Gotham

Starred review from March 9, 2009
Pintoff's debut, winner of the first Minotaur Books/MWA Best First Crime Novel award, will remind many of Caleb Carr at his best. The wreck of the steamship General Slocum
in 1904 cost Det. Simon Ziele of the New York City police both his fiancée and the full use of his right arm. In response to those losses, Ziele has abandoned big-city policing for the quiet dullness of Dobson, a town in Westchester County, but a brutal murder interrupts his retreat from the world. Someone slashes and bludgeons to death Sarah Wingate, a Columbia mathematics graduate student whose brilliance evoked jealousy in her peers, in her home under circumstances that resemble the notorious murders of Lizzie Borden's parents. Ziele's investigation is soon co-opted by Alistair Sinclair, a student of criminology who's convinced he knows the culprit's identity. The period detail, characterizations and plotting are all top-notch, and Ziele has enough depth to carry a series.

March 1, 2009
A detective and several criminologists track a madman from the Palisades to the Bowery in a debut set in 1905.

After the tragic loss of his fiance, Detective Simon Ziele heads north from New York City for the village calm of Dobson. That calm is suddenly shattered by a vicious murder in one of the town's stateliest homes. A young woman, Sarah Wingate, is butchered; a maid and likely witness, Stella Gibson, is missing. But within hours, Ziele has a surprising lead. Columbia criminologist Prof. Alistair Sinclair is studying a psychopath whose macabre fantasies exactly match the details of the crime. With his daughter-in-law Isabella and the rest of his research team, Alistair has been trying to rehabilitate Michael Fromley, but he's escaped. Ziele joins them to hunt for Fromley and follows other leads as well. Gradually they piece together the details of Sarah's life. She was a suffragette and a brilliant mathematician on the verge of solving the famed Riemann Hypothesis with the help of Prof. Angus MacDonald, her mentor and secret love. Other graduate students resented her success, but none seems capable of this brutality. Fromley stays two steps ahead of the team, taunting them and meting out more violence until his body washes up in the Hudson, proving that he died before Sarah Wingate—and that Ziele, Alistair and Isabelle are tracking a killer even more calculating and vicious than they imagined.

In a setting rich with period detail, the Gothic horror spirals to a satisfying conclusion.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from May 1, 2009
Detective Simon Ziele fled New York City for Westchester County following the death of his fiance in the 1904 "General Slocum" disaster, but he finds he can't escape violent death when he takes on the case of a young Columbia graduate student murdered while visiting her aunt. Ziele is approached by criminologist Alistair Sinclair, who claims to know the identity of the killer. The first winner of the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Competion nicely contrasts academic theorizing with the reality of police detection set against the backdrop of a vividly depicted turn-of-the-century Gotham. Recommend to readers who enjoy historicals of this period, such as Caleb Carr's "The Alienist" and Ann Stamos's "Bitter Tide". For all collections. [A Minotaur First Edition Selection.]

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2009
This historical mystery is the inaugural winner of a new competition for first crime novels sponsored by Minotaur Books and the Mystery Writers of America. Pintoff excavates a rich vein of early criminology (centering on criminal psychology) andearly feminism (the murder victim is one of the first female graduate students at Columbia University).She also delivers a gripping detective story, set in 1905. The detective, Simon Ziele, once based in New York City, seeks solace in the village of Dobson, New York, after losing his fianc'e in the sinking of the ferry General Slocum. Hes drawn back to the city, though, when a young woman, a grad student at Columbia, is found murdered in her bedroom. Ziele consults with criminologist Aliston Sinclair at Columbia, whose insights into criminal psychology add texture but are delivered in a somewhat heavy-handed manner. Great for dexterous plotting and for New York atmosphere at the turn of the last century.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)