Showing results by author "Victoria Thompson" in All Categories

After a routine delivery, midwife Sarah Brandt visits her patient in a rooming house and finds that another boarder, a young girl, has been killed. At the request of sergeant Frank Malloy, she searches the girl's room and discovers that the victim is from one of the most prominent families in New York - and the sister of an old friend. The powerful family, fearful of scandal, refuses to permit an investigation. But with Malloy's help, Sarah begins a dangerous quest to bring the killer to justice before death claims another victim.

At a summons from Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy, midwife Sarah Brandt arrives at the elegant home of famed magnetic healer Edmund Blackwell to find his wife in labor - and the good doctor dead from an apparent suicide. Only Malloy sees what no one else wants to: that Blackwell was murdered in his own home. After a successful delivery, the Blackwell baby falls mysteriously ill.

When a day at the races reveals sabotage and subterfuge, Elizabeth Miles must use every ounce of her craftiness to even the score in this all-new Counterfeit Lady novel from USA Today bestselling author Victoria Thompson.

Thinking that she has been summoned by German immigrant Agnes Otto to usher a new life into the world, midwife Sarah Brandt is greeted by the news of an untimely death instead. It seems that Agnes' beautiful younger sister, Gerda, had fallen into the life of a "charity girl". Caught up in the false glamour of the city's nightlife, she would trade her company and her favors for lavish gifts. And now she was dead - victim, no doubt, of one of her "gentlemen friends".

Elizabeth Miles Bates has returned from her honeymoon cruise and is taking great pride in having completely forsaken her past life as a con artist. Then her friend, Anna Vanderslice, begs her to use her talents to help save her widowed mother from a disreputable medium. Since the war and the flu epidemic left so many families bereaved, interest in contacting the dead has experienced a revival. Once quite popular, séances have come back into vogue as desperate families mourn their loved ones and long to communicate with them.

In this compelling Gaslight Mystery by Edgar Award-nominated author Victoria Thompson, a lady of means helps midwife Sarah Brandt rescue a young woman and her newborn from a brothel. But when the wealthy benefactor is found murdered, Sarah uncovers some unpleasant truths about the victim, her charity, and the woman and child Sarah risked her own life to save.

Gideon is preparing wills for soldiers before they ship out for the Great War. Corporal Tom Preston is part owner of Preston Shoes, a company that is making footwear for the army, so he has a rather large estate. He needs a new will, however, because he has just been secretly married to a woman whom his family would never approve. He wants to make sure she and their unborn child are provided for if he does not return. When Tom is later reported killed, Elizabeth and Gideon learn that the new will has gone missing after Tom's bride revealed her identity to his family.

Reformed gangster Jack Robinson is working hard to bolster his image in Gilded Age New York City society as he prepares to become a new father. But when Hayden Norcross, the man who nearly ruined his wife, is shot in cold blood, Jack knows the police will soon come knocking on his door.

The Great War is over, and Elizabeth and Gideon are busy planning their wedding. Gideon is happily welcoming home old friends who have been discharged from the army. One of them, Archie Carstens, the son and heir of a wealthy Knickerbocker family, served as a captain in the army and now seems less happy to be home than Gideon had expected. While Archie was in France, he met and fell in love with a beautiful French woman named Noelle. He would have gladly proposed, but he was already engaged to a girl he had known all his life back in America.

Abigail Northrup of Tarrytown, New York, was her parents' pride and joy. After graduating from a prestigious women's college in Morningside Heights, she took a job there as an instructor. She also joined the ranks of the New Women, ladies planning for a lives without husbands in which they make their own decisions and make a difference in the world. Unfortunately, her murder ended all that.

Like most women, Elizabeth Miles assumes many roles; unlike most, hers have made her a woman on the run. Living on the edge of society, Elizabeth uses her guile to relieve so-called respectable men of their ill-gotten gains. But brutal and greedy entrepreneur Oscar Thornton is out for blood. He's lost a great deal of money and is not going to forgive a woman for outwitting him. With his thugs hot on her trail, Elizabeth seizes the moment to blend in with a group of women who have an agenda of their own.

When midwife Sarah Brandt visits Little Italy to check up on a new mother who delivered her baby just the day before, she finds the young woman dead. The family insists that the death was from complications of childbirth. Sarah disagrees. So does the woman's own mother, an Irishwoman who spreads the story that the girl was murdered by her Italian in-laws, the Ruoccos - an accusation that inflames tensions between the two immigrant groups.

In Victoria Thompson's Murder on Waverly Place, midwife-sleuth Sarah Brandt is surprised by her mother's desire to attend séances in an undesirable section of New York City. During one dark session, death strikes a participant while all are holding hands around the table. Now it's up to Sarah - and her detective sergeant friend - to deliver her mom from scandal and ferret out the murderer.

Sarah Brandt is surprised when the son of her superstitious next-door neighbor asks for her professional advice. She is even more surprised to learn that mild-mannered Nelson Ellsworth has a mistress and has gotten her with child. When the young woman later turns up dead under the infamous hanging tree in Washington Square, Nelson is the prime suspect. Sarah knows that he must be innocent, and she enlists the help of detective Frank Malloy to help her find the real killer.

After Nehemiah Wooten, a polarizing figure among the hearing impaired, turns up dead, NYPD Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy begins to investigate. While interviewing Nehemiah’s wife Valora, he’s surprised when the not-so-grieving widow—hiding a secret pregnancy—goes into labor. Summoning his midwife friend Sarah Brandt, Frank learns from her of the eugenics views that kept Nehemiah from Valora’s bed ever since the birth of their deaf daughter Electra—now suspiciously joyful at her dad’s death.

Priscilla Knight is a dedicated suffragist who was recently widowed for the second time in her young life. Her beloved first husband, DeForrest Jenks, died in a tragic accident and left her with two young daughters and a comfortable fortune. Soon after his death, her pastor convinced her she needed a man to look after her. Before she knew it, he had engineered a whirlwind courtship and hasty marriage to fellow parishioner Endicott Knight. Less than nine months later, Endicott is also dead in a somewhat less tragic and even more suspicious accident.

Frank and Sarah Malloy are enjoying married life and looking to make their family official by adopting Catherine, the child Sarah rescued and has been raising as her daughter. The newlyweds soon discover Parnell Vaughn, an actor and Catherine's legal father, is looking to fatten his pockets by insisting on a financial settlement to relinquish his parental rights. Even though exchanging money for a child is illegal, Frank and Sarah's love for Catherine drives them to take a chance. When Frank returns with the money and finds Vaughn beaten to death, all evidence points to Frank as the culprit.

In this Gaslight Mystery from the national best-selling author of Murder in Murray Hill, midwife Sarah Brandt and Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy investigate foul play in the secretive high-society world of 19th-century New York City....

When the affluent Lintons of Lenox Hill summon Sarah Brandt to examine their teenage daughter, their worst fear is confirmed: she is with child. The pregnancy is a mystery, however, as the young woman - mentally still a child herself - is never left on her own and denies that any man has ever hurt her. It's a delicate situation, one which casts suspicion on those close to the Lintons, including their beloved minister, the Reverend Oliver Upchurch.

The Prodigal Son Mission on Mulberry Bend stands as a refuge for girls who otherwise would have to live by selling the only thing they have of value - themselves. The work being done there so impresses midwife Sarah Brandt that she volunteers to help out however she can - with clothes, with medical assistance, and with the organization of a benefit dinner. And when one of the girls is found dead and refused burial because of her former life, Sarah's passion for justice is aroused.