I started this series several years ago and got through the first 3 books  of the series, but although  none were “Wow” quality, I certainly enjoyed them.  Over time, Gaslight Mystery Series slipped by the wayside  but I would check every once in awhile.  LOL –   Somehow they always struck me as being a bit sweet or fluff or ???.   

Murder on Washington Square 
By Victoria Thompson
Read by  Callie Beaulieu 9h 2m 
Rating:  A / historical mystery 
#4 in Gaslight Mystery Series 

The series is basically a detective mystery story which takes place in the very early 1900s New York City. Teddy Roosevelt is a police commissioner in New York and is trying to cut the corruption which apparently ran rampant.  

The history is done with a lightish touch, but it’s correct and definitely establishes an atmosphere of 1900s New York with all its poverty, crime, and corruption, along with a bit of the conspicuous consumption of the Gilded Age. This is certainly not Ragtime (E.L. Doctorow, 1975) which is set in just about the same time and place and is definitely literary in that ideas are given priority over historical accuracy. Unlike Doctorow’s novels, Thompson’s books are very “realistic” and as true to life as can be documented – this is true of most true-to-genre historical fiction as well as procedural crime books, historical or contemporary, but NOT ALL!!  And Thompson’s books easily stay within the bounds of documented historical sources.

In a mystery “series” the character development has to be good – as good as the history in a historical fiction mystery.  Sarah Brandt is the protagonist in this series. She’s a widow who worked as a midwife before the death of her husband and takes it up again after a bit of grieving.  Her upper class family of origin didn’t approve of her marrying a lowly police officer, but a few years have passed now and in one of the early books of the series they reconcile. But Sarah continues to help women deliver their babies and sometimes there are girls in trouble of various kinds.

Doing this work brings her to a friendship with officer Frank Mallory, also a widower but with a small handicapped son. Frank lives with his mother who helps with the boy. The series as a whole follows Sarah and Frank as they solve various crimes and fall in love. It’s not overdone and seems realistic for the era. (Queen Victoria was alive until 1901.)

In this book though, Nelson, the young adult sone of Sarah’s neighbors, comes to her with a problem –  he’s been seeing a young woman named Anna, and now she’s told him she’s pregnant. Nelson is a bit smitten and very responsible so he wants to do the right thing and marry her. Oddly, considering the times, Anna refuses. So  Nelson wants Sarah to examine Anna to make sure things are alright, but Anna refuses that, too.

The next day or so Anna’s bloody body is found under the Hanging Tree in Washington Square and Nelson is arrested for murder.  

Sarah is a bit suspicious about all this (Nelson was trying to marry her!!!) so she asks her police detective friend, Frank Malloy, to look into things with her which has its own twists and turns. 

Then come the local gossips, the yellow journalism with their overly-aggressive reporters and voracious readers, the corrupt police department, the scandalous jails and the rest of it – the days of Teddy Roosevelt work as Police Commissioner in NYC.  It’s real without the research overwhelming the story, but it’s fun to look it up.  There are victims twisted into victimizers and purported victimizers who are actually the victims.  It gets twisted – it gets fun.