Brooklyn on Fire

November 2, 2015
Set in 1890, Levy’s engaging second Mary Handley mystery (after 2015’s Second Street Station) finds the neophyte detective working as a salesclerk at a Brooklyn bookstore, where an elegant Southern woman, Emily Worsham, seeks her out. Emily wants Mary to try to prove that John Worsham, her late uncle who died in 1870, was murdered. Soon drawn into the world of high society, Mary asks the snobbish Arabella Huntington, John’s widow, for permission to exhume her first husband’s body. Arabella is incensed, but her son, Archer, wants to know the truth about his father’s death. Wealthy George Vanderbilt, who followed Mary’s previous case in the papers, offers his assistance.
To complicate matters, several seemingly unrelated murders point to Mary’s policeman brother, Sean Handley, as a
suspect. Political machinations surrounding the eventual consolidation of Brooklyn and New York City lend additional interest to this charming historical. Agent: Paul Fedorko, N.S. Bienstock.

November 1, 2015
A turn-of-the-20th-century Brooklyn detective must find a killer to save her brother. The year is 1890. Mary Handley, who maintains a little office in Mr. Lazlo's bookshop, hopes the notoriety she gained from solving the Goodrich murder case (Second Street Station, 2015) will jump-start her career as a consulting detective. She's delighted when Emily Worsham asks her to prove that her uncle, John Worsham, was murdered. Little does Mary know that the case will propel her into a perilous hunt among the bluebloods of Manhattan and the crooked politicians who run her own city, which is still independent, not yet a borough of New York. Worsham's first wife, Arabella, is now married to wealthy, ruthless Collis Huntington, who will do anything to please her but is having a difficult time moving into high society and is less than pleased with the possible scandal trailing her first marriage. In the meantime, Mary's police officer brother, Sean, who's been promoted to homicide, has a tricky case of his own to solve. When Mary follows Arabella to a museum, she meets George Vanderbilt, who takes a shine to her and acts as her assistant in the Worsham case, his entree into New York society proving invaluable. The clues they find take them to Richmond, where Worsham met and married Arabella. When Sean is arrested for killing his fiancee, Mary struggles to find the real killer. She's nearly killed when she gets too close to the dangerous secrets at the heart of these intertwined cases. Again Levy does a fine job of mixing historical characters and situations with his feisty, liberated detective.

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January 1, 2016

Feisty, independent Mary Handley continues her adventures (following Second Street Station) in Gilded Age New York City. Mary, a Brooklynite from a close-knit Irish American family, is set on becoming a private detective despite the obstacles a career-minded woman faces in the 1890s. Mary developed a passion for detective work at the tender age of 12 and is determined to succeed, a likely outcome given her exceptional talent for ferreting out information. But she also has a talent for getting into dangerous situations. Mary is hired by Emily Worsham to find her Uncle John's killer, sending our protagonist on a desperate journey for the truth that leads from Brooklyn to North Carolina and to three murders seemingly linked to Mary. VERDICT Historical fiction enthusiasts will delight in Levy's clever insertion of the era's rich and famous into his cast of characters--the Huntingtons, Rockefellers, and Vanderbilts. Why, even Mary herself has a historical counterpart! Suggest Levy's series to fans of Rhys Bowen's "Molly Murphy" mysteries and Jacqueline Winspear's "Maisie Dobbs" books.--Barbara Clark-Greene, Groton P.L., CT

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2016
Mary Handley, independent detective in Victorian Brooklyn, is setting up her office in a corner of Lazlo's Books when Emily Worsham asks her to prove that a man who died 20 years earlier had been murdered. The deceased is the first husband of Arabella Huntington, wife of railroad magnate Collis Huntington. Mary's pursuit of the case leads her into the upper reaches of New York society, mingling with the titans of Gilded Age industry, as well as into seedy Brooklyn bars and the back rooms where political scandals are hatched. Meanwhile, the fiance of Emily's brother, Sean, a Brooklyn police officer, is murdered, and Sean is arrested for the crime, giving Mary another case to investigate. The historical backdrop comprises the high-stakes political games Huntington and others are playing to effect the merger of Brooklyn and New York into one city. This is a worthy sequel to Second Street Station (2015). Handley is an independent, insightful detective from the same mold as Charles Todd's Bess Crawford and Frances Brody's Kate Shackleton.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)