Murder, Mystery and Mayhem in old New York

There are three fabulous new historical novels about old New York,  When I say old, I mean old as in New Amsterdam in the 1600's.


First in order of history.


The Orphanmaster by Jean Zimmerman (2013)


The year is 1663. The Dutch are barely eking out an existence at the tip of Manhattan Island.  The British are set to invade and the Indians are not always friendly. Into this precarious world, Blandine  von Couvering a young female trader makes her living.  Surprisingly, Dutch women at this time had many more rights than their British counterparts.  But Bandine is faced with more challenges than making a living.  She realizes that orphans are disappearing and she suspects foul play.  Aided by dashing English spy Edward Drummond, Blandine sets about discovering the fate of the missing orphans and in doing so uncovers a very early serial killer.




Americans have always loved sensational trials.  Before OJ, there was Levi Weeks. Of course you never heard of Levi Weeks.  But  you have heard of Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. Paul Collins'  Duel with the Devil takes us back to the year 1800 when Americans were wrapped up in the trail of Levi Weeks accused of murdering a young Quaker woman Elma Sands whose body was discovered in a well.  Levi Weeks's defending attorneys were no less than Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. Collins takes us back to 1800 to a Hamilton and Burr we never learned about in school.  The two men were loyal patriots, brilliant attorneys, passionate politicians and flat broke.  Indeed the well in which the body was found was part of Burr's get rich quick schemes.  Tragically, the two defense attorney met in a duel a short time later.  Great courtroom drama and insightful history.


Caleb Carr's The Alienist (2006) is an oldie, but goody.  The year is 1896 and New York is plagued by a grisly murder. Police chief Theodore Roosevelt enlists the aid of New York Times reporter  and Dr. Laszlo Kreizler a psychologist or alienist as he was called in his time.  The two men create a profile of the murderer and take us through New York's  underbelly of crime, prostitution and drugs.




Alice Hoffmann is a prolific writer of historical novels with a touch of the supernatural.  Her novels such as The Probable Future, The Red Garden, Here on Earth and the Dovekeepers have earned rave reviews.  Her latest novel The Museum of Extraordinary Things is set in New York in 1911. It is the year of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire and the fire at Coney Island.  It is the ending of an era when the sturgeon still ran in the Hudson River and there were still wild areas in the northern part of Manhattan.  Eddie Cohen is a photography who is running from the grinding poverty of his youth as well as the Orthodox Judaism of his father. Coralie Sardie is a young woman swimmer whose magician father has a Svengali-like hold on her. The two meet in this lovely novel of mystery, tragedy, murder and finally love and forgiveness.  It is truly a gem.