Historical Mystery

Murder in Morningside Heights by Victoria Thompson

Jonetta | Blue Mood Café

Murder in Morningside Heights

 

I’m reading this series in one of my Goodreads groups and it’s one of our favorites. It’s set in turn-of-the-century (19th) New York City featuring Sarah and Frank Malloy who often find themselves investigating murders together.

 

 

 

 

Frank finally gets a meaty case for his new detective agency. It involves the vicious murder of a young teacher at a college for women where she taught French. As he begins the investigation, Frank and Gino Donatello enter territory best handled by a female so Sarah gets put to great use.

The most interesting aspects of this story involve the historical elements, specifically the New Woman label given young women who opt for a college education and a career beyond. The murder victim, Abigail Northrup, surprised her family by wanting to teach following graduation, eschewing the marriage route as apparently the choice was one path or the other as working while married wasn’t an option. There were other beliefs about female sexuality, working women and pay philosophies that surprised me despite this being the turn of the century. It was enlightening.

The case was interesting but the investigation was tedious with a lot of repetition. There were a host of suspects but it was only challenging for a short time. I’m hoping that what was disclosed at the end of the story stimulates the direction going forward. I liked the story but it falls short of those that preceded it.

Book Info

  • Release Date: May 13, 2016
  • Series: Gaslight Mystery #19
  • Page Numbers: 300
  • Publisher: Berkley

 

Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

 

Published by Jonetta | Blue Mood Café

26 thoughts on “Murder in Morningside Heights by Victoria Thompson”

  5. It’s incredibly difficult for any author doing a long or longish series to maintain it at its best through out, and there will always be one or two stories that never quite hit the mark. I’ve been reading Louise Penny’s work from the beginning, and, as a whole, you can see the characters grow and change, which is wonderful, but there’s been one or two stories that readers have found lacked the same zing. I simply applaud her ability to have kept each book feeling fresh at the time of publication.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  9. Totally feeling Alexandra’s thoughts up there! It’s so hard for long series not to get repetitive but it’s also hard as the reader to continue to read redundant information. I’ve had to step away from completed series before because it’s so redundant (especially when I’m binge reading them lol). This does sound like a cute series, the let downs in this book aside. Great review!!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  11. Pingback: 2019 Historical Reading Challenge – Blue Mood Café
  12. Pingback: 2019 Library Love Challenge – Blue Mood Café

Comment anyone?

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s