11/01/2019
Lady's maid Jane Prescott plans to spend her holiday attending a riot-prompting cubist exhibition in New York but fears she should be helping with a play commemorating the 50th anniversary of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, a society event starring her own employer. In the end, she does something entirely different. With the help of two friends, reporter Michael Behan and music hall pianist Leo Hirschfeld, she investigates a murder whose victim was found outside a home her uncle runs for women. Third in a series; A Death of No Importance was a 2018 LJ Best Book.
02/10/2020
Set in 1913 Manhattan, Fredericks’s engrossing third mystery featuring lady’s maid Jane Prescott (after 2019’s Death of a New American) focuses on the plight of prostitutes. The Rev. Tewin Prescott, Jane’s socially progressive uncle, runs a refuge for former prostitutes on the Lower East Side. When a young woman who lives at the refuge is found murdered in an alley with one of her stockings missing, the protestors who continually harass the residents are quick to accuse Tewin of the murder, and the police are listening. But when a second woman, a department store employee and a former resident of Tewin’s halfway house, is murdered and another trophy taken, Jane sees a connection to a similar assault that happened near the refuge years earlier. Jane sets out to locate the woman who survived that assault and perhaps find a killer. No matter that the rich historical detail overshadows the crime solving. Fredericks’s portrait of the social disparities of early 20th century New York and of the appealing Jane make this a winner. Agent: Victoria Skurnick, Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary. (Apr.)
Nominated for the 2021 Mary Higgins Clark Award
"Ms. Fredericks's tour of old New York - from a seedy Bowery dive to the gilded palace of a department store - is eye-opening, and her mystery well-spun. But what makes this book a stand-out is its affecting depictions of interactions that transcend race, creed, gender and generations." - Wall Street Journal
"Buoyed by Fredericks' deft plotting and lucid prose, Jane handles each crisis with aplomb. A welcome addition to the lady's-maid-cozy corner." - Kirkus
"Engrossing. Fredericks's portrait of the social disparities of early 20th century New York and of the appealing Jane make this a winner." - Publishers Weekly
"Charming . . . This is well worth recommending to patrons who liked the other books in the series as well as to those who are in the market for an Upstairs, Downstairs-tinged mystery." - Booklist
This genteel historical mystery makes a charming audio companion if you don’t mind a few bodies in the alley. Jane Prescott, a purehearted orphan who works as a lady’s maid in Gilded Age New York, is outraged that her sainted uncle, who runs a shelter for recovering ladies of the evening, is suspected of involvement in the murders. In her quest to clear him, Jane attracts the admiration of a young pianist/songwriter (think Irving Berlin) who opens just the right doors for her. Fredericks fills her tale with intriguing social history, including the much documented but still shockingly overt racist and sexist attitudes of the day. Stephanie Willis’s narration begins with just the right naïve tone, then gains power as the story darkens. B.G. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
This genteel historical mystery makes a charming audio companion if you don’t mind a few bodies in the alley. Jane Prescott, a purehearted orphan who works as a lady’s maid in Gilded Age New York, is outraged that her sainted uncle, who runs a shelter for recovering ladies of the evening, is suspected of involvement in the murders. In her quest to clear him, Jane attracts the admiration of a young pianist/songwriter (think Irving Berlin) who opens just the right doors for her. Fredericks fills her tale with intriguing social history, including the much documented but still shockingly overt racist and sexist attitudes of the day. Stephanie Willis’s narration begins with just the right naïve tone, then gains power as the story darkens. B.G. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
2020-01-13
A lady's maid searches for a vicious killer.
Much as she enjoys working for New York socialite Louise Tyler, whose easygoing nature allows a certain degree of amity between employer and employee, Jane Prescott (Death of a New American, 2019, etc.) is looking forward to her week off. She wants to enjoy some of the cultural delights Gilded Age New York has to offer—particularly the new, reputedly scandalous exhibition of cubist art at the Armory. She's even happy to be spending time with her only living relative, her sometimes-distant and prickly uncle, the Rev. Tewin Prescott, at the refuge he runs for former prostitutes. But her holiday is interrupted by two crises of unequal proportions, although pressed with equal urgency. Mrs. Tyler calls Jane in a panic because the American Beauty pageant sponsored by Rutherford's department store, the palace of consumption owned by George Rutherford, husband to Louise's good friend and fellow socialite Dolly, is imperiled by the abrupt departure of its seamstress. And the police suspect Jane's uncle of involvement in the murder of Sadie Ellis, a resident of the refuge. Buoyed by Fredericks' deft plotting and lucid prose, Jane handles each crisis with aplomb. The author's brisk timing even leaves room for a budding romance between Jane and a pianist with an eye for the ladies, a more complicated relationship with a married journalist, some hijinks at the Acme Café, a dance hall owned by local gangster Chick Tricker, and a serious look at race relations in early-20th-century America.
A welcome addition to the lady's-maid-cozy corner.
