Book summary

A prostitute clad in a green velvet gown is found murdered in a warehouse on the backstreets of 1870's Manhattan. The ball gown she is wearing has a name-label, bearing the name of the wife of prominent attorney, Vance Walburton. When the police question Walburton, it emerges that his wife left him some several months earlier. Walburton hires Harp, a streetwise Civil War veteran, to locate his wife and discover her connection to the slain woman. Harp questions everyone who had business at the warehouse, including the owner and gangsters who were robbing it near the time of the murder, then with the help of a secret lover, he follows a hunch that the disappearance and the murder are somehow connected to the incipient women's movement.

Media reviews

"This entertaining, straightforward story of a murder investigation in 1870's New York City is convincingly filled with all the nuance and detail a historical mystery should have...Best of all is the fascinating exploration of the unlikely alliance of suffragettes and spiritualists, a little acknowledged but important aspect of the early feminist movement."

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