The Harvey Girl
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
From the award-winning author of the Kate Shugak Mysteries, a thrilling new detective series set during America's wild boom time of the nineteenth century.
WELCOME TO THE GILDED AGE. WHERE NOT EVERYTHING GLITTERS.
1890. The New Mexico Territory is a lawless frontier where criminals steal money and land alike with impunity. Everyone wears a six-gun and is ready and willing to draw it.
In the new city of Montaña Roja, Fred Harvey's growing empire is threatened by the robberies plaguing his newest Harvey House restaurant. To get justice, he needs a skilled detective to go undercover and procure answers to questions the law will not ask.
The assignment falls to Clare Wright, a young Pinkerton agent. Disguised as one of Harvey's famous hostesses, Clare travels west where she risks being exposed at every step of her investigation. To get answers – and to get out alive – there are only two things she can trust: her instincts, and her derringer.
Reviewers love The Harvey Girl
'Smooth writing, interesting characters, and a mystery to boot... I love this book' Joe R. Lansdale
'An absolute gem of a novel – a gripping story with great characters and fascinating history' C.J. Box
'A richly researched, masterly plotted historical mystery' Sara Donati
'I adored this novel and can't wait for the next one' Douglas Preston
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A strong-willed woman detective faces danger in the 19th-century American West in this promising if underheated series launch from Stabenow (A Taint in the Blood). The action opens in 1890 with a brutal murder during a robbery on a train of supplies bound for a Harvey House—a chain of Southwestern restaurants and hotels—in the New Mexico Territory. It's the latest in a string of similar crimes, and Pinkerton agent Clare Wright, who's made her name pulling off tricky undercover missions, is assigned to find out who's behind the killings. To do so, she poses as a hostess at a Harvey House in the rough mining town of Montaña Roya. The hours are grueling and surveillance is tight, but Clare manages to find evidence of her employers' shady finances before another murder rattles Montaña Roya, making her eager to identify the culprit before her cover is blown. Though things get off to a slow start, Stabenow builds sufficient suspense by the novel's midpoint, and the thrill of watching Clare flourish in this hypermasculine, rough-and-tumble environment helps paper over some of the pacing issues. Appearances from real-life figures including Mark Twain and journalist Bat Masterson are a cherry on top. By the time everything comes together, readers will be well primed for the sequel.
