Brooklyn Secrets: An Erica Donato Mystery

In Stein’s labored third Erica Donato mystery (after 2014’s Brooklyn Graves), Erica’s scholarly interest in how Brooklyn neighborhoods change gets her into trouble. While researching the tough Brownsville neighborhood of the 1930s at the local library, Erica, who’s in the CUNY graduate program, meets bright high school senior Savanna Lafayette. When Savanna is found badly beaten a few days later, Erica realizes that she knew Savanna’s mother, Zora Lafayette, when they were classmates in sociology of the family at Brooklyn College and offers to help. Erica and Zora soon must deal with the death of one of Savanna’s young friends. Meanwhile, in the course of Erica’s research into Brownsville’s criminal past and its notorious gangsters, she interviews two elderly women, whose childhood memories lead her on another archival search. She also learns more about her cab-driving father and her 15-year-old daughter, Chris. Neither history nor mystery is well served by this attempt to weave them together into one tale. (Dec.)