“Murder on Astor Place” by Victoria Thompson – The Midwife Sleuth

In Murder on Astor Place by Victoria Thompson, we are introduced to a midwife by the name of Sarah Brandt, who has, with time, become estranged with her rich and powerful family. However, one day she is forced to reconnect with them as a young girl, Alicia VanDamm, is murdered in Sarah’s boarding house.

As it turns out, Alicia’s family is also quite prominent, and her next of kin do not want an investigation for fear of some kind of scandal. It seems, for a while at least, that Sarah is the only one who wants justice for Alicia, but soon after being taken off the case, Sergeant Frank Malloy asks for Sarah’s help, and together they attempt to bring the one responsible to justice.

One of the greatest things about this story, I found at least, is the setting. Everything is so accurately and vividly described that you can practically feel yourself being there. The world of old New York may be something lost to time that we will never get to experience personally, but from what I could feel, this book comes pretty close to transporting you there.

The characters themselves are also quite interesting, at least in the sense that Victoria Thompson did not try to modernize them or anything. It felt as if she wanted to keep everything as it was in that time period, and though she falters at times (of course, I do not blame her), on the overall, the characters simply feel like they fit in with that world.

Murder on Astor Place by Victoria Thompson (Book cover)
The cast is of all colors here, with there being charming, hate-inducing, mysterious, loud and quiet characters. The chemistry between the protagonists is especially fun to watch develop.

As for the story itself, I have to say that it reminded me of some old-time detective novel. It’s not exactly something outstanding or truly groundbreaking, but it keeps you interested and entertained throughout the entire duration.

The events advance at a relatively brisk pace and most of the twists aren’t exactly easy to predict, with the ending being quite enthralling, wrapping everything up nicely. All in all, I believe that fans of mystery novels will have a lot of fun reading this book.


Victoria Thompson (Author)

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”.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

“The Locked Door” by Freida McFadden – Roots of a Lost Innocence

Image
  Freida McFadden has been quietly writing some exciting and original thrillers in her spare time from being a practicing physician, and The Locked Door is one of her latest offering in the genre.  It tells the story of Nora, a surgeon and daughter of a serial killer now in jail, who sees her life assaulted from the dark as someone begins to recreate her father's work with the exact same signature.
Read more

“The Lost Colony” by A.G. Riddle – A New Home Among the Stars

Image
A.G. Riddle's Long Winter Trilogy Series is one many of us will remember for the amazing story it brings of humanity's last stand against an overwhelming enemy in times of hopelessness. In The Lost Colony , the third book in the series, we follow James and Emma on their own respective struggles as humanity tries to settle itself on a new planet with an unseen danger none could have foreseen.
Read more

“Winter World” by A.G. Riddle – Ice Age from the Void

Image
A.G. Riddle is a true literary explorer seeking to push humanity to its limits and beyond, setting them on a desperate collision course with something beyond its understanding in Winter World . With a sudden ice age dawning on humanity entire swathes of land become uninhabitable and people begin dropping like flies, with anarchy reigning supreme. Looking to the stars for a miraculous solution, the remnants of humanity find a massive mysterious object floating near Mars ...whatever it is, our civilization's hopes of survival rest entirely in its hands.
Read more

“The Girl on the Stairs” by Barry Ernest – The Small Thorn you Can’t Ignore

Image
Girl on the Stairs , by Barry Ernest and with a foreword written by David Lifton, is an exploration of one specific aspect of the JFK assassination. More precisely, it looks into what a little girl by the name of Victoria Adams saw on that day while standing in the staircase of the Texas School Book Depository, where Lee Harvey Oswald was supposedly making his escape.  Actually, it is more about what she didn’t see than what she did see. Victoria was on the staircase Oswald supposedly used, at the exact same time he supposedly used it. If he were to be there, even the little girl she was, Victoria would have noticed a nervous man quickly running down the stairs. However, she says that on that day, she was alone there, with nobody to be found, especially Oswald.
Read more

“Three Comrades” by Erich Maria Remarque – The Other Side of the Barricade

Image
The two World Wars have been documented, discussed and depicted from virtually every perspective imaginable, ranging from small children caught in a crossfire all the way the leaders of each country. However, it seems that here is a startlingly small amount of attention dedicated to the small hiatus period between the two wars, a time during which many changes came to pass in Germany in a very short amount of time.
Read more