Murder on Millionaires’ Row

Raised in Manhattan’s impoverished Five Points district, 19-year-old Rose Gallagher, the narrator of this promising series debut from Lindsey (the Bloodbound fantasy trilogy), works as a maid in Thomas Wiltshire’s Fifth Avenue townhouse. Rose, who has a crush on the handsome British bachelor, is alarmed when Wiltshire vanishes in January 1886. In the course of attempting to trace his movements, she encounters a distraught, bloodstained woman who appears on the sidewalk ahead of her and then walks straight through a lamppost, leaving it suddenly sheathed in ice. When Rose learns that the newspaper article Wiltshire was reading just before he disappeared concerned an apparition with similar properties, she realizes that more than human perfidy is afoot. Though the book’s middle sections feel clogged with the detailed explanations required by its complex world of ghosts and shades, magical gifts and disembodied threats, Rose’s sparkling perspective and an appealing supporting cast shine throughout. Lindsey’s quirky mix of supernatural shenanigans and well-drawn historical detail augurs well for future installments. [em]Agent: Lisa Rodgers, Jabberwocky Literary. (Oct.) [/em]