Simon Ziele, former NYC detective, has moved to rural Dobson,
NY after the death of his fiancée. It is 1905 and he is hoping to find some
peace and less violence in his life. This is not to be. A young female graduate
student is brutally murdered while visiting her aunt in Dobson and the
housemaid has vanished without any of her belongings. When a Columbia
University criminologist, Alistair Sinclair, shows up the next day, things take
a decidedly odd turn. Sinclair states he believes he knows who the murderer is
based on the method. He has a patient he thought was purged of his violent
actions by expressing them as fantasies in their sessions; but this crime is
too similar to those fantasies and the patient, Michael Fromley, has
disappeared. While skeptical of Sinclair’s theory, Simon returns to New York to
work with him and pursue Fromley. His return to the city is painful but he is
certain the solution to the crime will be found there.
Just as Simon finds himself caught between the old and the
new in Sinclair’s early theories on profiling, the city itself is in a great
change as well. The streets are a battleground of horses, cars, and
pedestrians. Tammany Hall is stealing elections, Grand Central Station is going
up, the subway opened recently and the elevated trains run overhead. Simon is
both intrigued by and wary of the changes as he pursues his suspect, Fromley,
and explores the ideas Alistair proposes.
In the Shadow of Gotham was a totally satisfying book! It is a very good
mystery; it has well defined, believable characters; it evokes the New York of
the early 1900’s beautifully; the writing style is literate without being
pompous. A fines herbs omelette of a
book.
CAS
Read-alikes:
The Alienist by Caleb Carr
The Interpretation of Murder by Jeb Rubenfeld
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