Murder in Chinatown (Gaslight Mystery Series #9)

by Victoria Thompson

Overview

In Chinatown to deliver a baby, Sarah Brandt meets a group of women she might otherwise never have come across: Irish girls who, after alighting on Ellis Island alone, have married Chinese men in the same predicament. But with bigotry in New York from every side, their mixed-race children are often treated badly, by the Irish, the Chinese—even the police.
 
When the new mother’s half-Chinese, half-Irish, 15-year-old niece goes missing, Sarah knows that alerting the constables would prove futile. So she turns to Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy—and together they begin the search themselves. And after they find her, dead in an alley, Sarah and Malloy have ample suspects—from both sides of Canal Street.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780425222058
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/03/2008
Series:	Gaslight Mystery Series , #9
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	94,823
Product dimensions:	4.20(w) x 6.75(h) x 0.75(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Victoria Thompson is the Edgar(r) Award-nominated author of the Gaslight mystery series and 20 additional historical novels. She lives in Pennsylvania with her family.

Editorial Reviews

When a half-Chinese, half-Irish girl goes missing in turn-of-the-century New York Chinatown, midwife Sarah Brandt and Detective Sergeant Malloy have plenty of suspects on both sides of Canal Street. Thomson lives in Fayetteville, PA. Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Racism, immigration policy and lust all add up to murder as a new century dawns. Because immigration law does not allow Chinese women into the United States, many Chinese men marry poor Irish girls who are happy to have hardworking husbands. The Chinese are in danger of attack anytime they venture away from Chinatown. So the disappearance of Angel Lee, the mixed-race niece of a mother whose baby midwife Sarah Brandt has just delivered, terrifies her family. Sarah calls on her friend Detective Sergeant Malloy for help even though he disapproves of the sleuthing that places her in harm's way (Murder On Lenox Hill, 2005, etc.). Angel was being pressured to marry John Wong, a wealthy but much older Chinese friend of her father. Sarah's snooping reveals she has eloped instead with Quinn O'Neal, a poor Irish boy she had been secretly meeting. When she's found strangled in the backyard of the family's tenement, there is no dearth of suspects. The O'Neals despised the bride, and the Lee family was dishonored by her lack of obedience. To add to the confusion, Malloy, who's learned that Quinn's sister has taken up residence with John Wong, receives a number of false confessions from the Lee family. Despite his warnings to leave the case alone, Sarah keeps digging and putting herself in danger before the killer is revealed. A suspenseful tale of casual racism and corrupt police.

Kirkus Reviews

Suzanne Toren deserves a better vehicle for her talents than this predictable historical mystery set in early-twentieth-century New York City. Author Victoria Thompson has been praised for her Gaslight mysteries, which explore themes related to poverty and race relations. This installment focuses on the Irish and Chinese cultures of the period, whose members tended to intermarry because of their shared poverty. When a missing Irish-Chinese girl turns up murdered in an alley, midwife Sarah Brandt asks her detective friend, Frank Malloy, for help. While the story’s Irish and Chinese characters, suspects all, are made fully believable through Toren’s vocal skills, the development of the plot is hackneyed. D.L.G. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

OCT/NOV 08 - AudioFile