Mary Handley is a not your typical late-nineteenth century lady. She's fiery, clever, daring—and she’s not about to conform to the gender norms of the day. Not long after being fired from her job at the hat factory for insubordinate behavior, Mary finds herself at the murder scene of Charles Goodrich, the brother of a prominent alderman and former bookkeeper of Thomas Edison. When Mary proves her acumen as a sleuth, she is hired by the Brooklyn police department—as the city’s first female policewoman—to solve the crime. The top brass of the department expect her to fail, but Mary has other plans. As she delves into the mystery, she finds herself questioning the likes of J. P. Morgan, Thomas Edison, and Nikola Tesla. Mary soon discovers the key to solving the case goes well beyond finding a murderer and depends on her ability to unearth the machinations of the city’s most prominent and respected public figures, men who will go to great lengths to protect their secrets.
Much like Mr. Churchill’s Secretary and Maisie Dobbs, Second Street Station presents a portrait of a world plunging into modernity through the eyes of a clever female sleuth. Mary Handley is an unforgettable protagonist whose wit, humor, and charm will delight readers from the very first page.
@goodreads
MY REVIEW:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1231475459
I thought this book was pretty good only because Mary Handley was an awesome character, especially since this is set in the 1880's.
She witnessed a murder when she was a young girl and right then she decided she wanted to solve murders. In that day and age women didn't have those luxuries.
When she got older her brother Sean is the one who became the cop and she worked in a sweatshop called the Lowry Hat Factory. They got paid hardly at all, they had to work in conditions that included roaches and rats. A lot of days she went hungry. But, Mary had enough, stood up to her boss, and immediately got fired. Oh well!
Mary had a friend Kate that lived above her in the apartment building and Kate's fiance got killed. Kate was so distraught that Mary went down to see if she could get in on what happened. She knew most everyone there through her brother and the Chief was nice to her. Luckily when she went in and saw the body she gave her own diagnoses of what happened. After this they decided to hire her as the first lady private investigator. As you can imagine, this made Mary ecstatic.
Mary ends up getting into some scuffs with bad men and bringing them in as she if very proficient in jujitsu and can take a person down! I love it! She does end up get stabbed, shot... you know.. your every day things, but she just keeps on going.
In trying to find the murderer she gets to interview people like Thomas Edison, since the one murdered did work for him, J.P. Morgan and Nikola Tesla.
Also, in other places there are other murders occurring which brings her face to face with the Bowler Hat, he's the one she saw as a child murder the man on the train. Image her shock to find him all of these years later!
In order to not give away any spoilers, I will say that Mary gets the murderer who you would never in a million years guess. And she takes care of some people in the story that needed taken care of.
I think she is a great character and I do look forward to reading the next story about her. I love that she is a strong woman back in those days and could take care of herself.
**I would like to thank Blogging for Books for a copy of this book for my honest review.**
3 Stars
BROOKLYN ON FIRE IS THE NEXT BOOK IN THE MARY HANDLEY SERIES DUE OUT IN SPRING 2016
Blogging for books review:
http://www.bloggingforbooks.com/reviews/view/49889
No comments:
Post a Comment