This engrossing tale of murder and deception from Meyers (Murder Me Now
, etc.) captures the tones and accents of an earlier era while maintaining a sense of urgency and high suspense. In 1936, Nathan Ebanholz, a Jewish immigrant, is trying to bring his wife and baby daughter from Europe to New York to escape the Nazi threat. He has paid Marvin Zweikel, who makes a good living at this human trade, to arrange their safe passage, but his loved ones are not on the ship they're supposed to be on, as Zweikel discovers. When Ebanholz, who's having an affair with Zweikel's wife Stella, learns that the couple have hidden the true fate of his wife and daughter from him, he kills Stella in a rage. In a further impulsive act, Nathan kidnaps a sick three-year-old girl from the hospital where Stella worked as a nurse and takes the youngster to the suburban New Jersey home of his childless sister, Anna, and her gentile husband, a doctor. The rest of the book focuses on the girl Rosie, who grows up ignorant of her origins to become an artist in Greenwich Village, though she is increasingly haunted by fearful visions. Inevitably, the new generation repeats the mistakes of the old in a well-crafted novel that manages to entertain as it seriously explores issues of good and evil. Mystery Guild featured alternate. (Mar. 24)
