Near Prospect Park

November 18, 2019
Set in 1896, Levy’s fraught fourth whodunit featuring intrepid New York PI Mary Handley (after 2018’s Last Stop in Brooklyn) throws series fans a curve. After someone steals a play script from W.S. Gilbert, the famed librettist receives an unsigned ransom note offering to return it in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park in exchange for $4,000. Gilbert hires Mary to meet the thief in the park, where the exchange goes awry, and she loses consciousness after being shot. Mary wakes up to the sight of her investigative reporter husband, Harper Lloyd, who’s been fatally shot, lying nearby. Mary, who left the ransom note at home, feels guilty that her forgetful act apparently led Harper to follow her to his doom. Teddy Roosevelt, a member of the board of police commissioners, aids Mary in her search for Harper’s killer. Levy does a better job of making a female gumshoe in this era plausible than many of her contemporaries prowling the same turf. Readers will be curious to see what turn Mary’s career takes next. Agent: Paul Fedorko, N.S. Bienstock

December 1, 2019
A shocking #MeToo story set in an era when women had no chance of being believed. Private detective Mary Handley (Last Stop in Brooklyn, 2018, etc.) has married reporter Harper Lloyd. Since their baby girl, Josephine George Handley, arrived in March 1896, Mary's cut back on detecting. But she maintains in office in the bookstore of her friend Lazlo, and that's where William Gilbert, of Gilbert and Sullivan fame, asks her to help him recover a stolen manuscript. Mary agrees to deliver the $4,000 the thieves have demanded to a meeting place in Prospect Park. The sellers never show, but someone accosts Mary as she leaves the park and tries to steal the money. Mary, who has a black belt in jujitsu, easily overpowers him, but she's attacked from behind by someone else and awakens to find her husband--whom she'd left at home, writing and watching Josie--shot dead. Blaming herself, she's devastated until her friend Patrick Campbell, a retired police chief, visits and encourages her to use her skills to find the men who killed her Harper. Meanwhile, Mary's acquaintance with Theodore Roosevelt, who as president of the police commission is determined to root out corruption, entangles her in the case of Stanford White and James Breese, respected society figures accused of drugging and raping a 15-year-old. The police, who don't believe the girl, have refused to investigate, though their society friends generally acknowledge that White and Breese are guilty. But few of them care about the fate of lower-class women above the age of consent, which is 10. Mary, who's worked for many famous people, meets Diamond Jim Brady and Lillian Russell, who agree to help her with the manuscript thieves and the rape case. The failure of Mary's daring plan leaves it to fate to exact revenge. Famous figures of the period spice up a fine mystery that takes on a problem still making headlines.

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January 1, 2020
In 1896 New York, consulting detective Mary Handley seeks to take only cases that will not impinge on time with her nine-year-old daughter. However, when W. S. Gilbert, in New York to produce a musical, asks Mary to retrieve the manuscript of a stolen play and pay the ransom at a spot outside Brooklyn's Prospect Park, she agrees. But the drop goes wrong, and even her jujitsu skills don't help when a gunshot grazes her ear. When she comes to [a gunshot grazing her ear is enough to render her unconscious?], the manuscript and ransom money are gone, and her journalist husband Harper's body is in a nearby alley. Determined to find both the missing manuscript and her husband's killer, Mary draws on her personal connection to police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt to help gain entr�e to Gilded Age society as well as to Broadway luminaries. Levy masterfully incorporates true stories into the plot, supplying historical tidbits that will send readers to the internet to learn more. A natural for fans of Rhys Bowen's Molly Murphy, Victoria Thompson's Sarah Brandt, and Alyssa Maxwell's Emma Cross.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)