TELL ME, PRETTY MAIDEN
by Rhys Bowen
Molly Murphy’s detective agency suddenly has too many cases for the independent Irish lass to solve alone.
Recently returned from adventures abroad, Molly Murphy is checking the background of a young man for his fiancée’s family when two difficult cases fall into her lap. Actress Oona Sheehan asks Molly to help fellow actress Blanche Lovejoy find a ghost in a haunted theater, and a wealthy woman begs her to discover what happened to her nephew, a Yale student accused of robbery and murder. Most pressing is her desire to identify a beautiful mute girl she and Daniel Sullivan found, near frozen, in snowy Central Park. Because the girl, who has been taken in by Molly, lacks identification and cannot speak, the police plan to send her to an insane asylum. Since Daniel has been suspended from the police force, Molly enlists him to help with her caseload. She takes a small part in the play Blanche Lovejoy is starring in; Daniel investigates a fiancé; and they both travel to New Haven in hopes of discovering what happened to the wealthy student, their romance progressing in fits and starts along the way.
Not as satisfying as Molly’s last adventure (In Dublin’s Fair City, 2007, etc.), but bolstered by sharp historical backgrounds and wacky adventures.