In a Gilded Cage (Molly Murphy Mysteries, 8) - Hardcover

Bowen, Rhys

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 031238534X ISBN 13: 9780312385347

Publisher: Minotaur Books, 2009

Synopsis

Irish immigrant Molly Murphy and her New York City P.I. business are in the midst of a sweeping influenza epidemic and a fight for women’s suffrage that lands her in jail. Her betrothed, Police Captain Daniel Sullivan, finds her, but he hardly has time to bail her out, what with Chinese gangs battling for control of a thriving opium trade. The only consolation Molly can take from her vexing afternoon in the clink is that it made her some new friends among the Vassar suffragists---and brought her a pair of new cases.

For the first, Emily Boswell is convinced her miserly uncle stole her inheritance and wants Molly to uncover the truth behind her parents’ lives and deaths. Second, Emily’s college roommate Fanny Poindexter wants Molly to find proof of her husband’s philandering so that she can leave him without one red cent. But when Fanny dies and her husband claims she’s a victim of the epidemic, it’s more than Molly’s conscience can take.

Rhys Bowen’s Agatha and Anthony Award--winning historical series continues to breathe life into the past with its wit and charm and its complete sense of early-twentieth-century New York, which makes In a Gilded Cage her most accomplished mystery yet.

About this title

About the Author

Rhys Bowen’s novels have received a remarkable number of awards, including the Anthony, Agatha, and Macavity Awards as well as the Bruce Alexander Historical Award and the Herodotus Award. She is also the author of the Royal Spyness series and the Edgar Award--nominated Constable Evan Evans mysteries. Born in England, she now lives in San Rafael, California, with her husband.

Reviews

Near the start of Anthony-winner Bowen's delightful eighth Molly Murphy mystery (after 2008's Tell Me, Pretty Maiden), two Vasser alum friends persuade the Irish-born detective to march for women's rights with the VWVW (Vassar Wants Votes for Women) in New York City's annual Easter parade. On Fifth Avenue that Sunday morning, Molly meets Emily Boswell and other West Side socialites, all of whom wind up getting arrested for disturbing the peace. Molly's intended, police captain Daniel Sullivan, rescues the women from jail, but is wholly unsympathetic to their mission. The down-on-her-luck Emily, who works in a drugstore, hires Molly to find out the truth about her missionary parents' deaths and her loss of inheritance. Another Vasser grad has a philandering husband to track. As ever, Bowen does a splendid job of capturing the flavor of early 20th-century New York and bringing to life its warm and human inhabitants. (Mar.)
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Eighth in the Molly Murphy mystery series, following Tell Me, Pretty Maiden (2008), this installment outshines the others in character development and plot complexity. Details of Molly’s new cases are knit together with the accoutrements of 1918 New York City life—automobiles, women’s rights, social climbers, and the flu epidemic—bringing a visceral reality to the story. Conflicted over a potentially inequitable marriage to her fiancé, Captain Daniel Sullivan, and enjoying the company of Sid and Gus, her outré lesbian friends, Molly carries her own, compelling internal struggle to her work. She’s hired by her friend Emily to investigate a family mystery that has caused a miserable childhood and an uncertain financial future. Simultaneously, Molly is employed by a wealthy acquaintance to determine her husband’s fidelity or lack thereof. When the acquaintance dies suddenly, supposedly from flu, followed by another woman in her circle, Molly suspects murder. Don’t miss this great period puzzler reminiscent of Dame Agatha’s mysteries and Gillian Linscott’s Nell Bray series. --Jen Baker

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter One

 

It is a well-known fact that we Irish are prone to bouts of melancholy, even without the help of the bottle. I suppose it goes along with the Celtic temperament and long, wet winters. Anyway, I was experiencing such a bout myself as I trudged home through a rainstorm that was wetter and colder than anything I had experienced at home in Ireland. March winds and April showers bring forth May flowers—that was how I learned it at school in Ballykillin. Well, it was now the middle of April and the gale that was accompanying the rain was worse than anything we'd experienced in March. I would never understand the New York weather! One minute it could be sunny and springlike and suddenly the temperature would plunge thirty degrees and we'd be back in winter again.

 

We had endured a particularly long, cold winter, with snow well into March. The bleak conditions had produced all kinds of sicknesses and people had been dropping like flies as influenza of the nastiest kind had turned to pneumonia. Even I, usually known for my robust constitution, had succumbed and spent over a week with a raging fever that finally subsided, leaving me feeling weak and drained. It had been almost three weeks now and I had hardly left the house until my small detective agency, P. Riley and Associates (I now being sole proprietor and associate rolled into one), received a job offer I simply couldn't turn down. It was from Macy's new department store, at Thirty-fourth Street and Herald Square. They wanted me to look into a case of shoplifting that even their own store detectives had not managed to stop. Naturally I was thrilled and flattered, and I accepted immediately. I would have crawled from my deathbed for such an assignment. If I was successful, who knew where it might lead?

 

The weather had finally been springlike when I set off for work that morning, which was why I'd worn my light business two-piece and not thought to take a top-coat or a brolly. Both of which I was now regretting as I came out of Macy's to find that the temperature had plunged again and it was blowing a gale. Within seconds I was soaked to the skin, freezing cold, and thoroughly miserable.

 

I should have been feeling on top of the world. I'd just concluded another successful case. In the guise of a new counter assistant I had spotted the pilfered goods being smuggled out in the trash by one of Macy's own employees and then retrieved from the big trash bins by an accomplice. I had been handsomely rewarded for my ser vices and was glowing with pride, dying to share my news with somebody when I stepped out of Macy's back door and into the gale.

 

I had hopped on a passing Broadway trolley and later regretted this move as well, as I had to walk home from Broadway with the rain driving straight into my face and one hand jamming my charming spring hat onto my head. By the time I was halfway home I was well and truly sorry for myself. I was still weak, of course. I was not usually the kind of person who wallowed in self-pity or thought of her-self as a helpless female. But as I trudged onward I was overwhelmed with gloomy thoughts. I longed for home and family and someone to take care of me.

 

I suppose this wave of blackness and insecurity had something to do with my intended, Daniel Sullivan. We weren't officially betrothed yet, but we had definitely reached the stage of an understanding. And it was this that was making me unsettled and jittery.

 

Had my mother still been alive, she would have relished telling me that I was never satisfied. I suppose she was right—when Daniel had been in disgrace and on suspension from his position as captain of police, he had shown up on my doorstep every single day, and I had found myself wishing he'd be reinstated quickly, not just for his sake but for mine too. I found myself seriously wondering whether marriage and domestic bliss were what I wanted for myself.

 

But recently he had been reinstated under the new commissioner of police and since then I had scarcely seen him. He had popped in once while I was at the height of my sickness, expressed concern, and then .ed, not to be seen again. So now I was filled with doubts: did this lack of attention mean that he had tired of me, or was he merely taking me for granted now that he had more interesting ways to spend his time? If I married him I'd have to come to terms with the fact that this was what life as a policeman's wife would be like. And how would I take to being the good little woman, sitting at home with my darning, waiting for him and worrying about him? Plenty of food for thought there. Never satisfied, I chided myself. Wants security but doesn't want to be tied down. Wants love but wants freedom. Wants . . .

 

I never did get to the third want, as a great gust of wind swept off the Hudson and snatched my hat from my head. I gave a scream of despair and leaped after it. It was a new hat, my first extravagant purchase since my detective agency started to make money, and I wasn't about to see it disappear under the wheels of a passing wagon or hansom cab. I lifted my skirts and chased it in most undignified fashion to Fifth Avenue. Then a particularly violent gust caught it again and swept it out into the street just as I was about to pick it up. I didn't think twice as I ran after it. There was an angry honking and I was conscious of a low black shape hurtling toward me.

 

"Holy mother of God," I gasped as I flung myself to one side. The automobile screeched to a halt inches in front of my hat, which now lay in the mud.

 

"What the devil do you think you're doing," shouted an angry voice. "You could have gotten yourself killed."

 

"I'm sorry," I began, then my mouth dropped open as the gentleman removed his driving goggles and I recognized him at the same moment he recognized me. "Daniel!" I exclaimed.

 

"Molly, what a damned stupid thing to do," he snapped. "These machines go fast, you know. And they don't stop on a dime. They're not like horses."

 

"I said I was sorry," I snapped back, feeling foolish now as a crowd gathered. "The wind took my hat and I wasn't about to lose it." As I said this I stepped gingerly into the mud and retrieved the hat, which was rain-soaked and definitely the worse for wear.

 

"Climb up," Daniel reached across to open the door for me, "and I'll drive you home. You look as if you've been dragged through a hedge backward."

 

"Thank you for the compliment, kind sir," I retorted, and was about to say I'd rather walk. But common sense won out, of course, and I dutifully climbed up to sit beside Daniel in the automobile.

 

"What were you doing out in this rain without an umbrella?" Daniel said, still glaring at me angrily. "You have no business being out at all on a day like this. You've been seriously ill, Molly."

 

"I was feeling better and, anyway, I had an assignment," I said. "It was too good to turn down. And if you want to know, when I left home at seven this morning the sky was blue. And believe me, I've regretted the decision to wear my spring clothes every moment of the last half hour."

 

Daniel looked at my angry face, with my hair plastered to my cheeks and drops running freely down my nose, and started to laugh. "I shouldn't laugh, I know." He attempted to stop smiling. "But you really do look like the orphan of the storm. Come here. Let me kiss that little wet nose."

 

He pulled me toward him and kissed the tip of my nose, then put his hand under my chin and repeated the process on my lips. His mouth was warm against mine and I found myself climbing down just a little from my high horse.

 

"Right, let's get you home and out of those wet clothes before you catch pneumonia," Daniel said. "I have to be back at headquarters within the hour, though."

 

He released the brake and put his foot on the accelerator pedal. The machine responded by coughing, bucking like a wild bronco, and then dying. Daniel muttered a curse under his breath and stepped down into the storm. "Now I've got to start the blasted thing again," he said. I watched while he took out the crank, went around to the front of the vehicle, and cranked several times before the contraption coughed and sprang to life. Daniel hopped in smartly before it could stall again and we were off. I glanced at him and started to laugh. "Now who looks like the orphan of the storm?" I said triumphantly.

 

In a minute or so we had pulled up outside my little house in Patchin Place. It is a street some might describe as an alley, but I think of it as a charming backwater in Greenwich Village. Miraculously the rain chose the same moment to stop, and a patch of blue appeared between the dark storm clouds. Daniel climbed down and came around to assist me. I opened the door, put on the kettle, and went to change out of my wet clothes. There wasn't much to be done about my sodden hair but at least the rest of me looked dry and respectable as I came downstairs again.

 

"Sometimes I despair of you," Daniel said. "Sit down. I'll make the tea."

 

He took the kettle from the hob and filled the teapot. "You don't have any brandy or rum to put into it, I suppose?"

 

Edition details

• Publisher: Minotaur Books
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 031238534X
• ISBN 13: 9780312385347
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288