Blackstone and the Wolf of Wall Street

by Sally Spencer

Overview

'A resourceful hero complements a sophisticated plot' - Publishers Weekly Starred Review

The new Inspector Sam Blackstone mystery . . .

August, 1900. William Holt, a reclusive millionaire businessman, has been kidnapped from his grand Coney Island home after the brutal murder of his two bodyguards. Soon, a huge ransom is demanded, and the victim's two sons are given just days to find the money. Inspector Sam Blackstone, now seconded to the New York Police Department, and his partner, Alex Meade, are charged with solving the case, but they'll need to keep their wits about them if they are to solve it in time . . .

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780727872876
Publisher:	Severn House
Publication date:	11/30/2015
Series:	A Sam Blackstone Mystery , #8
Edition description:	Large Print
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Spencer was born and brought up in Cheshier. She has been a teacher in England and Iran.

Editorial Reviews

Spencer (the pen name of Alan Rustage) gets everything right in his excellent eighth historical featuring Scotland Yard's Insp. Sam Blackstone. As 1900 draws to a close, the inspector is still in New York City, where he traveled to handle an extradition in 2009's Blackstone and the New World. When thugs kidnap reclusive millionaire William "Big Bill" Holt from his Coney Island home, where he's lived in an isolated, underground room for seven years, and hold him for ransom, powerful men in state government who don't trust the regular police put Blackstone on the case. With Holt's two sons having only three days to come up with the ransom, the pressure is on the English inspector. Spencer brilliantly plants clues throughout for the astute reader to spot. A plausible and resourceful hero complements a sophisticated plot, whose twists will remind golden age fans of John Dickson Carr's classic puzzlers. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"Clever plotting, well-developed characters, and realistically drawn period detail make this a solid choice for historical mystery fans"

Booklist

Marooned in the United States, Inspector Sam Blackstone investigates the kidnapping of a business tycoon.

Since an attempt on his life seven years earlier, banker William Holt has lived in seclusion in his Coney Island mansion, running his business from an underground suite with the help of sons George and Harold. But one morning, his butler Fanshawe discovers the two Pinkerton agents guarding his employer brutally slain and the man known as the Wolf of Wall Street missing. Brooklyn's Inspector Flynn is eager to catch such as high-profile case, but instead the NYPD sends East Ender Sam Blackstone and his upper-crust Connecticut protégé, Detective Sergeant Alex Meade. Blackstone, still on the trail of an English prisoner who escaped justice with a well-placed bribe (Blackstone and the New World, 2009, etc.), is the perfect fall guy if the Holt case turns sour, as it instantly does. First Fanshawe vanishes. The case against Edward Knox, the shooter whose initial assault sent Holt into hiding, goes south when vital evidence disappears. Flynn finds an informer but is shot when he follows his latest lead. Even the ransom drop is complicated by the kidnappers' demand that meek Harold rather than solid George be the courier. As he hits a series of dead ends, Blackstone senses a plot more complicated than even cynical Irishman Flynn suspects.

The case of the banker in the bunker provides enough wit, puzzlement and class warfare to delight the most devoted Blackstone fan.

Kirkus Reviews