In 1912, as New York reels from the news of the Titanic disaster, ladies’ maid Jane Prescott travels to Long Island with the Benchley family. Their daughter Louise is to marry William Tyler, at their uncle and aunt’s mansion. As the city visitors adjust to the rhythms of the household, and plan Louise’s upcoming wedding, Jane quickly befriends the Tyler children’s nanny, Sofia. However, one night, Jane is woken by a scream from the nursery―and rushes in to find Sofia murdered.
...wonderfully moving ... Fredericks has a sharp eye for the complexities of human nature and how even good people are capable of committing terrible deeds to protect the ones they love. This is a touching portrait of early-20th-century New York in all its glory and ugliness.
...although it works fine as a stand-alone, this fast-moving, second entry in the series (after A Death of No Importance, 2018) builds an immersive account of life in the early twentieth century ... Readers will await more adventures with the plucky, wise Jane. Try this with patrons who enjoyed Jessica Fellowes’ The Mitford Murders (2018) and with fans of mysteries that have solid historical-fiction underpinnings.
Fredericks...has obviously done her research about the period but sometimes seems to create scenes just to prove this. Otherwise, the plot moves along at a dull but leisurely pace to its unsurprising conclusion ... Fredericks' heroine has an acerbic wit that occasionally flashes, but it’s hard to sustain interest in this effort stocked with mainly stock characters.
