THE LACE WIDOW

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton wasn’t enough for you? Wish there was a sequel starring the Founding Father’s widow? Cox has you covered.

Ten days after Alexander Hamilton is shot to death by Vice President Aaron Burr, John Van Der Gloss, a witness to their duel, is fatally stabbed. The leading suspect is Alexander Hamilton Jr., who’d brawled with the victim only hours before the body was discovered. Alexander’s arrest weighs heavily on his grieving mother, but Eliza Hamilton isn’t one to take things lying down. When she finds a cryptic note from Van Der Gloss on her husband's desk ("You were right, though it pains me to say. There is evidence they set you up…”), she thinks it must refer to the 1797 embezzlement that blackened the former Treasury Secretary’s name, and she resolves to find out who’s responsible, thinking it may help free her son. Ignoring an anonymous missive that commands her to “mind [her] own affairs—or else!” she begins to question powerful men, who respond with solicitous inquiries about her health. If asking questions is a sign that a woman is addled, imagine the reaction when Eliza bands together with several women living in a group house and ends up going undercover in male attire. Her investigation leads her to a secret society descended from the Bavarian Illuminati and a string of other murders before she’s finally able to clear her family’s good name with precious little help from any man. A spirited author’s note defends Eliza against all possible charges of anachronistic rebelliousness by pointing to the historical evidence that the real Eliza Hamilton had a distinctly modern sensibility.

All right, so there’s no music and not that much mystery. But you’ll cheer the righteous heroine through thick and thin.