β Scribed by Rhys Bowen
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Set in 1903, Bowen's engaging 10th Molly Murphy mystery (after 2010's The Last Illusion) finds the maverick New York City PI at a major personal turning point. Her impending marriage to Capt. Daniel Sullivan of the NYPD will, at his insistence, mark an end to her sleuthing career, but she can't resist taking on one last case. After a powerful and affluent Chinatown businessman, Lee Sing Tai, asks her to locate a missing piece of valuable jade jewelry, Murphy soon ascertains that the less than forthcoming Lee really wants her to trace the missing bride he recently purchased in China. Searching for Lee's bride while keeping her activities a secret from her fiancΓ© is a considerable challenge for Molly, who also ends up with a murder to solve. Molly's compassion and pluck should attract more readers to this consistently solid historical series. (Mar.)
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Just weeks before she is to marry New York police captain Daniel Sullivan in 1903, private investigator Molly Murphy leaves the sewing of her trousseau in the capable hands of her future mother-in-law (who bemoans Molly's woeful stitchery skills) and takes on one last case, having promised Daniel she'd stop working once they've wed. Powerful Chinatown businessman Lee Sing Tai hires Molly to find his missing bride, a commission she is loath to fulfill upon learning that the bride is actually a concubine obtained from China solely to give Lee (whose holdings include brothels and opium dens) a son and heir. When Lee is found dead after a fall from his rooftop, Molly is relieved of her obligation. But when the death is ruled a murder, initially raising the possibility of tong wars, the bride'being sheltered by Molly'becomes a prime suspect. The tenth entry (after The Last Illusion, 2010) in this engaging, award-winning series captures early-twentieth-century New York; touches on the immigrant experience during that era; and brings the case to a satisfying conclusion, leaving open the equally compelling mystery of what lies ahead for the independent-minded Molly. --Michele Leber
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