For fans of HBO’s The Gilded Age , explore the dazzling world of America’s 19th century elite in this lush, page-turning saga… In 1913, while the women’s suffrage movement gains momentum in the nation’s capital, the thought of a woman joining the New York City police force is downright radical, even if recent transplant Louise Faulk has already solved a murder . . .   Louise has finally gathered the courage to take the police civil service exam, but when she returns to her secretary job at the midtown publishing house of Van Hooten and McChesney, she’s shocked to find the offices smoldering from a deadly, early morning fire. Huddled on the sidewalk, her coworkers inform her that Guy Van Hooten’s body has been found in the charred ruins. Rumors of foul play are already circulating, and the firm’s surviving partner asks Louise to investigate the matter.   Despite a number of possible suspects, the last person Louise expects to be arrested is Ogden McChesney, an old friend and mentor to her aunt Irene. Louise will have to search high and low, from the tenements in the Lower East Side to the very clouds above the tallest skyscrapers, to get to the bottom of an increasingly complex case . . . Liz Freeland lives with her husband in Montreal, where she writes and astounds the locals with her makeshift French. An elderly cat or dog (or two . . . or four) can typically be found in her apartment, and during the busiest day, Liz usually finds time to sneak in an old movie. Murder in Midtown By Liz Freeland KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP. Copyright © 2019 Elizabeth Bass All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4967-1426-8 CHAPTER 1 October 1913 2. How would you aid a police officer in making the arrest of one or more violent criminals? My forehead broke out in a dewy film of panic. Ever since this past summer when I'd found myself in the middle of a murder investigation, I'd envisioned myself as a policewoman in the New York Police Department. In my dreams, I would rise quickly through the ranks by dint of hard work, bravery, and cleverness to become a detective. I set my mind on taking the police civil service exam and studied every night after my workday as secretary at the publisher Van Hooten and McChesney. I also set aside Sunday afternoons, as well as any other moment I could sneak a few glances at my well-thumbed pamphlet of New York City's municipal ordinances. I was nothing if not determined. Yet here I was, taking the long-awaited test, and my cleverness had deserted me at Question 2. Where to begin? The question was so broad as to render it ludicrous. One or more could mean anything from a single thief to a rioting mob. Were these hypothetical criminals armed? That would make a difference. And what was this police officer doing? I imagined a square-jawed hero in blue taking on a knife-wielding gang. Conversely, I conjured up a novice as weak-kneed and untested as I would be cowering behind the closest solid object between him and the malefactors. Being bogged down with possibilities might be the opposite of drawing a blank, but it was just as lethal to a test taker. Never mind that I actually had aided a male police officer in the arrest of a violent criminal. Even Detective Frank Muldoon, not my biggest booster, had admitted — eventually — that a seasoned policeman couldn't have played his part in taking down the killer any better than I had done. But a civil service exam wasn't the best place to spin tales of my past derring-do or to crow about my triumph over Detective Muldoon's reactionary attitudes regarding women in law enforcement. During all my months of preparation for this moment, I'd assumed I was exceptional. An original. Yet the sound of a hundred pencils scritching against paper filled the hall, and all those pencils were pushed by the hands of women with the same dream. The majority of them looked to be in their early twenties like me, although a smattering were a bit longer in the tooth. Judging from appearances, they came from all walks of life: hard-looking, severe women; young women who might have worked at the five-and-dime; a few whose rough clothing and crude shawls gave them the air of being fresh off the boat; even one or two who were so well dressed that I wondered if they'd mistaken this for the entrance exam for Bryn Mawr. The young woman next to me possessed the bearing of a debutante and had set out this morning in a frock of winter white topped with a ridiculous hat festooned with ribbons, wooden berries, and imitation songbirds around its brim. In order not to soil the silk with pencil lead, she'd removed her right elbow-length glove and draped it over the back of her chair. Yet even she scribbled away, undaunted by Question 2. What kind of policewoman would I make if I couldn't even face down the exam with the fortitude of this pampered Miss Vanderbilt type? Giving myself a mental shake, I resumed writing. My background is German, not Irish, but what flowed f