The Lace Widow
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
Could Alexander Hamilton be at the center of a vast murder plot engulfing Old New York? As his widow, Eliza, pieces together the puzzle, she unearths a heartbreaking secret that threatens to tear her family apart.
Perfect for fans of Sherry Thomas and Deanna Raybourn, taking us from the city’s gilded mansions to its meanest streets, Mollie Ann Cox’s debut historical mystery transports readers to center stage in a time of grave political danger.
New York, 1804. America’s beloved Alexander Hamilton lies dead after a duel with Aaron Burr. Meanwhile, Eliza Hamilton’s eighteen-year-old son, Alexander Jr., was seen fighting with a man in a tavern the night before his father’s duel and quickly comes under suspicion for murder when the man turns up dead.
Eliza searches for ways to clear her son’s name, even as she is grieving, but as she combs through her late husband’s papers, she finds evidence of a plot to steal money from the government during his tenure as secretary of state. Hamilton was accused of stealing that money, and it was a scandal that almost broke the family—but is Eliza now holding proof of Alexander’s innocence?
Deep in debt and despair, with eight children to support, Eliza turns to selling her handmade lace—and is drawn into a mysterious network of widow lacemakers who are intimately connected to New York’s high-society families. They know their dead husbands’ secrets—and soon, Eliza begins to piece together the truth.
There’s a dark plot connected with the duel, as one by one, witnesses to the bout are being killed. Now, Eliza must not only clear her husband’s and son’s names but keep herself out of the killer’s sights.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
What if there was more to Alexander Hamilton's 1804 death than his duel with political rival Aaron Burr? That intriguing what-if animates Cox's brilliant debut mystery, which sees Hamilton's widow, Eliza, investigating his killing. Days after the duel, and before Eliza has had time to properly process its outcome, she witnesses the corpse of John Van Der Gloss being pulled from the North River near her Harlem home with his throat slashed. Van Der Gloss was not only Hamilton's friend, but one of the only witnesses to his and Burr's duel. The situation becomes even more personal when Eliza's teenage son, also named Alexander, becomes the prime suspect in Van Der Gloss's death. The night before his body was found, Van Der Gloss brawled with the younger Alexander, who told Eliza he'd become upset after hearing Van Der Gloss say "nobody knew the truth" about the duel. Resolved to exonerate her son and investigate Van Der Gloss's claims about her husband, Eliza starts thumbing through Hamilton's papers, which leads her down a rabbit hole of secrets and conspiracies involving the U.S. government and New York City's elite. Cox plausibly recreates 19th-century New York without freezing it in amber, and wrings real emotion out of Eliza's investigation. Admirers of Mally Becker's Revolutionary War Mysteries will be delighted.