In a Gilded Cage

January 5, 2009
Near the start of Anthony-winner Bowen’s delightful eighth Molly Murphy mystery (after 2008’s Tell Me, Pretty Maiden
), two Vasser alum friends persuade the Irish-born detective to march for women’s rights with the VWVW (“Vassar Wants Votes for Women”) in New York City’s annual Easter parade. On Fifth Avenue that Sunday morning, Molly meets Emily Boswell and other West Side socialites, all of whom wind up getting arrested for disturbing the peace. Molly’s intended, police captain Daniel Sullivan, rescues the women from jail, but is wholly unsympathetic to their mission. The down-on-her-luck Emily, who works in a drugstore, hires Molly to find out the truth about her missionary parents’ deaths and her loss of inheritance. Another Vasser grad has a philandering husband to track. As ever, Bowen does a splendid job of capturing the flavor of early 20th-century New York and bringing to life its warm and human inhabitants.

January 1, 2009
Molly Murphy takes up the suffragette cause and lands two new cases.

Barely recovered from influenza, Molly joins several Vassar graduates in an Easter Parade protest. They 're jailed but released by Molly 's longtime love, recently reinstated Police Captain Daniel Sullivan (Tell Me Pretty Maid, 2008, etc.). Meanwhile, Molly 's made a new friend. Emily Boswell works at a pharmacy after having been thrown out of the mansion she called home by the proverbial wicked uncle. Learning that Molly is a detective, she enlists her help in tracing her roots. Emily 's missionary parents reportedly died in China, and she was raised by distant relatives she called Aunt Lydia and Uncle Horace. But she suspects that this story is false. Joining Emily on a visit to her wealthy college friend Fanny Poindexter, Molly picks up her second case when Fanny asks her to discover whether her husband Anson has a mistress. Molly doggedly investigates Emily 's background, but her other case is short-circuited by Fanny 's sudden death from an atypical flu. Molly naturally suspects Anson, but when several other Vassar classmates die in the same way, Molly wonders if poison is involved. Both Emily 's chemist shop boyfriend and a skeptical Daniel test some hair samples Molly has gathered, with no conclusive results. Not until Emily also falls ill does Molly discover the truth about the deaths and Emily 's background.

Mystery mavens will spot the killer early, but feisty, independent Molly and the historical New York background give good value.

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

February 15, 2009
Eighth in the Molly Murphy mystery series, following Tell Me, Pretty Maiden (2008), this installment outshines the others in character development and plot complexity. Details of Mollys new cases are knit together with the accoutrements of 1918 New York City lifeautomobiles, womens rights, social climbers, and the flu epidemicbringing a visceral reality to the story. Conflicted over a potentially inequitable marriage to her fianc', Captain Daniel Sullivan, and enjoying the company of Sid and Gus, her outr' lesbian friends, Molly carries her own, compelling internal struggle to her work. Shes hired by her friend Emily to investigate a family mystery that has caused a miserable childhood and an uncertain financial future. Simultaneously, Molly is employed by a wealthy acquaintance to determine her husbands fidelity or lack thereof. When the acquaintance dies suddenly, supposedly from flu, followed by another woman in her circle, Molly suspects murder. Dont miss this great period puzzler reminiscent of Dame Agathas mysteries and Gillian Linscotts Nell Bray series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)