Murder on Millionaires' Row: A Debut Mystery Novel by Erin Lindsey plus a Giveaway!

Welcome!  The Lacemakers Secret by Kathleen Ernst will be available on October 8.  It is the ninth book in The Chloe Ellefson Mystery series.  A Year of Extraordinary Moments by Bette Lee Crosby along with Dear Santa by Nancy Naigle and An Amish Homecoming by Amy Clipston, Beth Wiseman, Shelley Shepard Gray and Kathleen Fuller will be published on October 16.  There are many wonderful new books coming out this fall.

ERIN LINDSEY has lived and worked in dozens of countries around the world, but has only ever called two places home: her native city of Calgary and her adopted hometown of New York. She is the author of the Bloodbound series of fantasy novels from Ace and the Nicolas Lenoir series of paranormal detective novels from Roc. MURDER ON MILLIONAIRES’ ROW is her debut mystery. She divides her time between Calgary and Brooklyn with her husband and a pair of half-domesticated cats.  Readers can follow Erin Lindsey on Facebook, Goodreads, Amazon, and Bookbub.

Murder on Millionaires’ Row is a debut mystery by Erin Lindsey.  Rose Gallagher works as a maid in the household of Mr. Thomas Wiltshire on Fifth Avenue in New York City in 1886.  Sunday evening Rose arrives home after her day off and goes to prepare her employers room for the evening.  Something feels off and Rose is sure that boss has not been in since Saturday.  The next morning the coppers arrive after 5 a.m. because Mr. Jonathan Burrows, a friend of Thomas’, has filed a missing persons report.  Rose can tell that Detective Ward is not taking the case seriously, and she decides to pursue the matter on her own.  Rose has dreamed of becoming a travel and adventure writer.  Little does she realize that searching for Mr. Wiltshire and the mystery he is embroiled in will be the adventure of a lifetime.

Murder on Millionaires’ Row is a complex novel.  Ms. Lindsey captured the Gilded Age with her vivid descriptions of the clothing, the architecture, the literature, music, the language and attitudes of the people especially towards the Irish.  New York City is brought alive in Murder on Millionaires’ Row.  I can envision Fifth Avenue with its cobbled streets, the carriages, ladies decked out in beautiful gowns with their hats and parasols, and the men in their bespoke suits, hats and carrying their walking sticks.  Of course, we can also imagine Five Points with children running around, litter in the streets, and thugs on the street corners as well as the Tenderloin with its dangerous bars, illegal businesses and men who will knife you for your money.  The author did her research for this story, and I appreciated the author’s note at the end.  Rose is a feisty Irish lass who has a crush on her employer.  Nothing is going to stand in her way of tracking Mr. Wiltshire down when he goes missing.  She is tenacious and intelligent.  Thomas Wiltshire is a complex man with a unique position.  He introduces Rose to another side of life that she had no idea existed.  Another great character is Clara Freeman who is the cook for Mr. Wiltshire.  I did feel the Rose’s infatuation with Mr. Wiltshire was mentioned too often.  It seems to be the only reason she is searching for her employer.  I felt Rose was also curious and needed the challenge (a much better rationale).  I cannot believe she managed to keep from being fired by the tartar of a housekeeper. Rose disappeared frequently while looking for Mr. Wiltshire.  Clara has hidden layers.  We just dig at the surface in Murder on Millionaires’ Row.  I found Murder on Millionaires’ Row to be a slow starter.  The pace picked up the further I got into the story as well as my interest.  I was unprepared for the paranormal aspects, but I was delighted by it.  It added another layer to the story along with Pinkerton agents, ciphers and magic.  Included in the story are witches, mediums, ghosts, shades and so much more.  The mystery is multifaceted.  It plays out over the course of the book with new aspects being regularly introduced.  At times it does feel overwhelming (there is a lot going on).  I would have liked the mystery to have been one that readers could solve along with Rose and Thomas (I love unraveling a puzzle).  Murder on Millionaires’Row is a unique cozy mystery that will take you for a walk on the dark side of New York City.

Murder on Millionaires' Row is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Google, iBooks and Kobo.   Here is an excerpt from Murder on Millionaires' Row for your reading pleasure:

ROSE GALLAGHER OF 55 MOTT STREET— JUST ANOTHER DAY— CLAR A’ S ADVICE— THE FIRST CLUE

 As I tell you this story, I’ll thank you to remember that I was young and in love. That’s not an excuse, but if you’re looking to understand what happened on that day in January 1886—

what really happened, mind you, not the version you read in Harper’s Weekly or The New-York Tribune—then you ought to have the whole picture. So yes, I was nineteen years old, and yes, I had a blinding crush on my employer, one Mr. Thomas Wiltshire of 726 Fifth Avenue, and those facts together led me to make certain choices in those early hours, choices that might charitably be called naive. Some of the actions I took I’m not particularly proud of. But I wouldn’t take a one of them back, either—which is saying a lot, considering how near they came to getting me killed.  But I’m getting ahead of myself. I really ought to start at the beginning, which means I should say a little about where I’m from. If you’re from around here, then you know that in New York, where you come from is everything. It defines your place in the world—your past, present, even your future if you let it. Why, just your name and address tell a stranger pretty much everything he cares to know about you. Not just where you live, but how: what parish you belong to, how much money you’ve got, where your people came from before they were Americans. He can even make a fair guess as to what you do for a living. Your name and address label you a certain type of New Yorker, a creature with particular habits and distinctive plumage, not unlike a species of bird. Black-capped chickadee. Northern mockingbird. Italian fruit vendor. Chinese laundryman. So when I say that my name is Rose Gallagher of 55 Mott Street, well, that’s a whole story right there, and a common one at that. The story of an Irish girl from Five Points.

What do those words conjure in your head? A photograph of some fair-haired, reedy thing leaning out of a tenement window to hang washing on the line while drunks and ragpickers loiter in the alley below? Well, you wouldn’t be far from the mark. But there’s more to me than that slip of a girl, just as there’s more to Five Points than the vice and violence you read about in the papers. Oh, it’s a wretched enough corner of the world, to be sure, but it’s home. And it’s where I learned that if you don’t take care of you and yours, there’s nobody else will do it for you.  Which brings me back to the day Mr. Thomas Wiltshire disappeared, and everything I knew in the world went spinning down the drain.  Funny, isn’t it, how the days that change your life forever start out like any other? I don’t remember much about that morning, except that it was a Sunday and my day off, so I took my mother to church. I’d have spent the afternoon scrubbing Mam’s floors and putting dinner on the stove, though I’ve no recollection of it. My first clear memory of the day is hanging off a strap on the Sixth Avenue el, trying to hold my copy of Harper’s Weekly steady while the train rattled and swayed beneath me. The el, if you haven’t had the pleasure, has all the lumbering grace of a three-legged bull, which makes reading the fine print of Harper’s a bit of a trick, especially when it’s coming on to dark outside. Luckily, I wasn’t trying to read the print; I was too busy poring over the illustration on the cover.It featured Mother Earth seated on her throne at the heart of the world, attended by her children as she greeted the New Year. She looked like a Roman goddess, serene and beautiful, smiling benevolently down at the cherubic 1886. I’d never seen anything so fantastical, so thoroughly exotic. Children of the world clustered around her, African and Indian and Celestial. Skins of lions and tigers beneath her sandaled feet. The volcano looming in the background, the waterfall plunging majestically over a cliff. What wondrous places had the artist traveled that he could capture images like these in such sumptuous detail? I felt a familiar pang of longing, and for a moment I imagined myself standing in a steam- ing jungle, brushing up against leaves the size of an elephant’s ear while I listened to birds shriek and insects sing, the roar of a waterfall in the distance.

Maybe it was longer than a moment, come to think of it, because the next thing I remember it was full dark and I was making my way down the steps of the Fifty-Eighth Street Station in the rain. I must have made a pitiful sight hurrying along the sidewalk with my bonnet pulled low and my precious paper tucked under my arm, because the nighthawks seized on me the moment I turned onto Fifth Avenue, the clip-clop of hooves and calls of “Cab, miss?” trailing me down the block. I burst through the servant’s door at Number 726 with my usual grace, stumbling over the umbrella someone had left open to dry in the entryway. I couldn’t wait to show Clara the illustration on the cover of Harper’s, sure she would appreciate it as much as I did. But as I made my way down the hall, I heard a frightful clamor of pots and pans coming from the kitchen, and I drew up short.

Warily, I peered around the doorframe. “Clara?”My greeting was met with a crash of the oven door and a string of language as doesn’t bear repeating, the gist of which was this: Clara was having a bad day.  

“People starving in this city—starving—but that’s no bother, just fine, I’ll toss away three hours’ worth of cooking!”  I braved a single step into the kitchen. “What’s happened?” She whirled on me, hand on hip, eyes flared with righteous anger. “Why? I’ll tell you why. Because His Lordship Sir High-and-Mighty can’t be bothered to come home for his dinner! Again.”  “Oh.” I tried to think of a reasonable excuse. “Well, I suppose he’s very busy with work.”  “I suppose he is. Too busy to send word, even. So important.”

“Careful,” I said, throwing a worried glance at the foot of the servants’ staircase. Mrs. Sellers had a way of appearing on those stairs at the most inopportune moments. “She might hear you.” I didn’t need to say who she was.  “Don’t care if she does,” Clara said, but she lowered her voice all the same. She needed her position as much as I, and the housekeeper was always looking for an excuse to get after the both of us, since the only stock of people she cared for less than the Irish were the coloreds. Mrs. Sellers might not have the authority to dismiss us outright, but she could make things difficult with Mr. Wiltshire, and that was cause enough to fear her.

The publisher has kindly agreed to give away one copy of Murder on Millionaires' Row.  To win, please leave a comment on my blog along with your email address and become a follower of my blog (via email, Google+ or Twitter--upper right on the page).  You must be a resident of the United States or Canada to win.  Contest ends on October 10. Thank you for stopping by today.  I hope you have found a new book to add to your ever growing TBR stack.  I will be sharing my thoughts on The Ghost and the Bogus Bestseller by Cleo Coyle as part of the Great Escapes Book Tour tomorrow.  Take care and Happy Reading!

Kris

The Avid Reader