Brooklyn on Fire by Lawrence H. Levy

Brooklyn on Fire by Lawrence H. Levy is the second in the Mary Handley Mystery series.  You don't have to have read the first one which is Second Street Station.  Mary Handley was made famous in New York City when she received credit for solving this mystery but now it is 18 months later and Mary is not exactly setting the world on fire with her sleuthing skills.  No one seems interested until a murderer is on the loose strangling people and then setting the site on fire and at the same time Emily Worsham seeks to employ her to find out who murdered her Uncle John Worsham.  Now no one except Emily seems to think that John has been murdered and he wasn't exactly murdered yesterday--its been 20 years since John's death of what everyone believed to be heart failure .  Well Mary uses her status to get the body exhumed only to find a casket full of rocks buried in the cemetery.    Hmm that would peak anyone's interest even if after working for 4 weeks on the case Mary has only been paid for 2 of those weeks.  Then Emily is murdered and Mary finds that Emily also known as Abigail is an actress who had been hired to impersonate the real Emily.  Where will it all end and will Mary figure it all out before more are murdered.
This novel is set in early New York City in 1890.  This is the time that millionaires like the Carnegies, and the Rockefellers were coming into their own and joining ranks with the Vanderbilt family and others like them.  This book though a novel brings in the crooked politics taking place during that time which helped them achieve their millions.  The story is fiction but it is set within factual circumstances.  During this time of politics as our country  gets ready for a new election it lets the reader be aware that the shenanigans taking place  today are nothing new just different from the "Good Ol Days".
I liked this book and would recommend it for reading for anyone who loves a good mystery.  I often find that men who write books where a woman is the leading lady don't get the essence of how a woman thinks this author has it down.  Mr. Levy has a talent for knowing a woman's thought and why she does as she does which adds to the realism of this novel.  Good book thank you Mr. Levy.
I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.