“Murder on Fifth Avenue” by Victoria Thompson – Membership Revoked

Victoria Thompson seems to have made a living on murder mysteries, with virtually every single one of her novels being titled “Murder on/in”, leaving little to the imagination as to the nature of these books.

Naturally, this means that she has developed an aptitude for this sort of work, and like virtually every review is going to mention, she hasn't stopped improving since the beginning. One of her more recent works is certainly a testament to that, and it sports the title of Murder on Fifth Avenue.

In this story we are following Sarah Brandt, her significant other, Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy, and her father, Felix Decker. This last one is the owner of a rather prestigious club in high standing, the Knickerbocker, and recently a grand tragedy occurred with one of its members, Chilton Devries, being found murdered recently.
Not wanting to raise any kind of scandal for the preservation of his reputation Decker, decides to team up with Malloy and put the matter to rest in a quiet and discreet way.

However, Malloy's investigative talents only lead to the ultimate truth rather than a quickly-solved case, uncovering that Devries was in fact very far from being a gentleman in his personal life, with there being no lack of people who would want to see him dead. The suspects pile up faster than they can list through them, finally leading to some very inconvenient discoveries.

Speaking purely on the quality of the mystery itself, I would like to assure you that you won't remain disappointed in the slightest at its complexity or how it is presented to the reader. We are constantly kept on the edge of our seats with new clues and developments that come in rather quickly, often changing the picture and adding elements to it bit by bit.

The more experienced readers out there may find there to be some predictable passages, but that certainly doesn't mean that they aren't good or cannot be appreciated. The case is all twisted up and complex in its nature, especially considering the amount of characters involved in it and how they all come to be interrelated.

About the characters themselves, it is truly fascinating to see how Thompson decided to develop them not only in this novel, but throughout the entire series. The dynamics between them have slowly morphed into logical directions, and at this point, they feel quite realistic in how they develop and how the characters interact with one another.

Perhaps one of the book's more positive points is the overall atmosphere which pervades through it, being anchored in humor and lightheartedness. Yes, the subject matter is pretty morbid, but everything around it isn't.

There are plenty of little jokes and amusing occurrences which prevent the reading from feeling heavy, sagging and bogged down. If this novel was made into a movie, it would be advertised with the tired tagline “fun for the whole family!”.

And so, to conclude, Murder on Fifth Avenue is definitely one of Thompson's finer works to date in her Gaslight Mysteries, bringing to us a fun, thrilling and solid murder mystery set in the beautifully-described and vividly-portrayed New York, at a time when the streets were lit by gas lamps.

If a good, promising and complicated murder mystery is something you are after, with a some humor and character development on the side, then I recommend you give this book a try.

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Victoria Thompson Personal site Victoria Thompson is an American author who had the distinction of, so far, being nominated for the Edgar Award, and her latest novel (at the time of writing this), Murder on Fifth Avenue, was nominated for the Agatha Award. She is without a doubt best-known for her crime series, Gaslight Mystery, one where every novel's title (not exaggerating in the slightest) begins with the words “Murder in”.