Seven for a Secret

Starred review from July 29, 2013
Faye once again skillfully evokes the early days of the NYPD in this gripping and moving sequel to 2012’s The Gods of Gotham, an Edgar finalist. One winter evening in 1846, Lucy Adams, a free black woman, calls on copper Timothy Wilde at police headquarters in the Tombs for help. Lucy’s sister, Delia Wright, and her seven-year-old son, Jonas Adams, have vanished from their Manhattan home. Wilde quickly ascertains that even though Delia and Jonas aren’t slaves, men seeking to profit from capturing them are responsible. Later, Wilde is horrified to discover the still warm body of a murder victim in the quarters of his police-captain brother, Valentine, and removes the body to a shanty near the Hudson to protect Valentine from being implicated in the crime. As this episode shows, Wilde makes mistakes—but his fallibilities are at the core of his appeal, even as his doggedness and insights enable him to tease out what really has been going on beneath the surface. Simple but effective prose, a brilliantly constructed plot, and three-dimensional characters add up to another winner for Faye. Agent: Erin Malone, William Morris Endeavor.

August 15, 2013
Bartender-turned-"copper star" Timothy Wilde returns in a second mordant historical mystery (The Gods of Gotham, 2012). It's been less than a year since the fire that consumed his savings and scarred his face led Timothy reluctantly to join the brand new New York City Police Force that gets its nickname from its star-shaped copper badges. Now, on February 14, 1846, he's congratulating himself for solving the theft of a painting when Lucy Adams bursts into police headquarters at the Tombs with the news that her sister, Delia, and son, Jonas, have been kidnapped. Lucy and her kin are free blacks from Albany, she tells Timothy, but "[s]lave agents care nothing for that, when the chance for profit is high enough." When Timothy manages to rescue Delia and Jonas with the help of his brother Valentine, he learns that their abductors have powerful political protectors in the Democratic Party machine, of which Valentine is a loyal member. Furthermore, Lucy is secretly married to a white state senator whose associates in Tammany Hall have every reason for wanting to get her quietly out of town. Silkie Marsh, the evil brothel madam Timothy foiled previously, turns out to be centrally involved in both the abductions and the plan to eliminate Lucy--and Madam Marsh hates Timothy just as much as ever, while still pining for drug-addicted Valentine. The brothers' relationship remains fraught but enduring as multiple plot complications ensue; Timothy's loathing of slavery and friendships with several African-American activists give the novel its moral fire. As was the case in The Gods of Gotham, Faye folds a blistering indictment of prejudice and persecution of the defenseless within a satisfyingly complex mystery. Its resolution saves some of the innocent and punishes a few of the guilty without pretending that society's basic injustices have been ameliorated. Vividly atmospheric; the thieves' slang all by itself evokes 19th-century New York with wonderful specificity. Let's hope Faye finds more dirty work for her intriguingly conflicted hero.

COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from September 1, 2013

In the wake of her Edgar-nominated debut mystery, The Gods of Gotham, Faye returns to 1840s New York and to her protagonist, young Timothy Wilde of the newly formed New York City Police Force. Promoted to detective, Tim lends his hand to investigating while trying to keep clear of his brother Val's Tammany Hall politics. Hoping to help a pretty girl, Tim stumbles on to a highly connected ring of slave smugglers, who kidnap escaped slaves and freeborn citizens for a price. It is dangerous to be an abolitionist in a New York as divided as the rest of the country in the years leading up to the Civil War. Tim confronts danger on all sides as he struggles with what is right and what will get him killed. VERDICT Faye's first novel won popular and critical success with its pairing of early police work and the criminal underworld of 19th-century New York. Her second novel is doubly impressive. Readers of historical and genre fiction will appreciate the twists and turns of this original series.--Catherine Lantz, Morton Coll. Lib., Cicero, IL

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 1, 2013
In crime-ridden New York City in 1846, the year after the NYPD was established, 28-year-old copper star Timothy Wilde is the solver of the chief's nastier puzzles. He intuitively solves the theft of a valuable painting, along the way establishing good will that will serve him well later. But beautiful, high-yellow Lucy Adams, wife of a white man, presents a knottier problem when she seeks him out personally after her son and her sister are kidnapped by slave catchers. This requires Timothy to enlist the help of his older brother and sole remaining relative, police captain Val, who alternately scandalizes and saves him. What seems a quick solution soon mushrooms into politically tinged murder, involving Timothy with members of the Underground Railroad trying to counter the slave-catching trade, in which both escaped slaves and freed blacks are captured in the north and sent south into slavery. Like its predecessor, Edgar-nominated The Gods of Gotham (2012), this is fiction based on thorough research, and it captures the tumult of its time and place in an action-packed plot with elements of tragedy and hope, featuring a protagonist who fights for what is right in the face of corruption. Superlative historical mystery.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)