Murder Between the Lines
Series: Kitty Weeks Mystery #2
May 2nd 2017
Sourcebooks Landmark
ISBN13: 9781492638926
Paperback, 336 pages
Intrepid journalist Kitty Weeks returns to unearth a murderous conspiracy in this WWI saga.
In the second book in the acclaimed Kitty Weeks Mystery series, Kitty is tasked with writing a story about Westfield Hall, a prestigious girls' boarding school. Tragedy strikes when a student named Elspeth is found frozen to death in Central Park. The doctors proclaim that the girl's sleepwalking was the cause, but Kitty isn't so sure.
Determined to uncover the truth, Kitty must investigate a more chilling scenario—a murder that may involve Elspeth's scientist father and a new invention by Thomas Edison.
For fans of Susan Elia MacNeal and Jacqueline Winspear, Murder Between the Lines is a rich and spirited novel with irresistible charm, combining true historical events with a thrilling mystery.
This book had two of my favorite things-mystery and pre-World War I New York. I adore a book that while getting me totally lost in a murder mystery will also take me on a trip to the early 1900's in New York City. I love seeing the awesome clothes and visiting the sites throughout NY City. This book was chock full of history that often had me going to my laptop to check out and read more in depth on. I haven't read the first book in this series which in no way lessened my enjoyment of it but I do intend to go back and read it as I have fallen in love with this author.
Radha Vatsal"s World Building for MURDER BETWEEN THE LINES
New York City in the 1910s was a changing, mysterious place:
it was still Victorian but with definite signs of modernity. Motorcars whizzed along the streets,
department stores bustled with life, New Yorkers rode in subways, hailed cabs,
went to the movies, ate out at restaurants, and watched the ball drop in Times
Square on New Year’s Eve—and back then most people knew that Times Square was
so named because of the New York Times building.
I researched life in the city for Murder Between the Lines, which takes place in late 1915/late 1916,
by scouring period newspapers—which was how I found out about the ball
drop. I read advertisements and
classifieds for insights into activities and services on offer, and also
products for sale. The advertisements
during the period were very colorful and included things we might not think
about today—tailoring services, Tecla imitation pearls, ice-skating on an
indoor rink at a hotel…
As a New York City resident, and a reader who enjoys being
immersed in new worlds (whether by time or place) I also like to think about
how my heroine, news reporter Kitty Weeks, moves around the city from point A
to B. At one moment in the novel, she
has to travel to the Bowery, a seedy area of Manhattan that’s some distance
away from her office. She wants to take
a cab. Her colleague says they should
take the subway. Now, I know which
subway route I’d take in the 2010s to get to the Bowery, but which train would
Kitty ride in the 1910s? Fortunately, I
was able to find a tourist guide to New York City from the period, which named
and described the routes of the different subway lines, and that helped me map
out a route for Kitty. For me, the
authenticity of those details not only adds up to create a rich environment in
which Kitty solves crimes but also produces its own obstacles and challenges
for her--a young woman out and about in the world at a time when very few women
negotiated the larger urban environment outside their homes or beyond their
workplaces by on their own.
-Radha Vatsal is the author of the Kitty Weeks mystery
series. Her latest book, Murder between
the Lines (Sourcebooks), publishes May 2.
Thank you so much Radha for this awesome behind the story look at New York in the 1910's. Your descriptions in the book were so vivid that I had no problem visualizing that time period and I loved looking up several places and events that you mentioned in you story for a deeper look.
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