In the Shadow of Gotham by Stefanie Pintoff

Summary and Review:

Simon Ziele was working as a detective with the New York City police force when his fiance, Hannah, was killed along with 1,000 others in the General Slocum ferry disaster on the East River. In order to escape memories of the tragedy, Ziele transfers to a sleepy one-man police department in Dobson, a city located a few miles to the north.

However, only a few months after accepting the new position, Ziele encounters one of the most brutal murders of his career. A young woman is murdered in her bedroom in an upper-class portion of the city. To complicate matters further, Ziele is immediately contacted by Alistair Sinclair, a blue blooded academic who runs a criminology research lab at Columbia University. One of his "subjects," a psychopath named Michael Fromley has disappeared. And the murder in Dobson bears an uncanny resemblance to Fromley's style.

Although doubtful of Sinclair's motives, Ziele has to trust the researcher and his staff in order to discover the connection between Fromley and the murdered girl, and stop the killer from striking again.

I picked this book up from my library's "Readers' Choice Nominees" table. I've been unimpressed with some of the other nominees, but was pleasantly surprised with this pick. I haven't read a good detective novel in a long time, and it was a fun little diversion. I thought the book's biggest weakness was establishing the setting; despite Ms. Pintoff's obvious knowledge of the culture and history of the era, for some reason I never really felt like I was in turn-of-the-[last]-century New York. There were also a few places where the first-person narration was a bit clumsy. However, the book was engaging and exciting. It kept me guessing and was fun to read. I enjoyed the historical inclusions, such as Tammany Hall corruption, the steamship disaster, "yellow" journalism, and women's rights and the emancipation movement (I did not know, for example, that it was illegal for a woman to eat in a restaurant unaccompanied by a man). I also enjoyed learning about the early use of forensics (such as fingerprinting) and psychological profiling in criminal investigations. I'm looking forward to reading more by Stefanie Pintoff. ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆ (6/10)

Content:

Blood and gore: graphic descriptions of murder scenes
Sex: mention of prostitution, non-explicit references to sexual violence
Offensive Language: slight, if any