MURDER IN ROSE HILL

An early-20th-century New York midwife puts aside her birthing responsibilities to solve yet another murder.

Socialite Sarah Brandt Malloy and her husband, Frank—who inherited enough money to quit the corrupt police department and open a detective agency—have solved many mysteries. Sarah, who likes to keep a hand in at a clinic she’s funded where even the poorest women can get care, has just delivered a baby when Louisa Rodgers, a magazine reporter for the New Century, arrives asking for her help in exposing the dangers of patent medicines. Many of them are addictive—not a surprise when most of them have a high alcohol content or contain drugs like opium to make their users feel better. When Louisa’s father shows up a few days later with the news that his daughter has been murdered, he tells Sarah that his daughter was a secretary at the magazine, not a reporter. Since the police think she was a randomly chosen victim, Sarah explains to Louisa’s distraught father that hiring Frank may be the only way to find the killer. Frank learns a good deal from his interviews at the New Century and a good deal more from his secretary, Maeve Smith, when he sends her to work there undercover. Maeve joins Frank’s partner, Gino Donatelli, to take on the people at the boardinghouse where Louisa lived. With suspects ranging from the owner of a local patent medicine factory to Louisa’s family members, it will be no easy task to uncover the real motive for her death.

The talented sleuths once again solve a difficult case enhanced by social commentary and historic detail.