Most mystery fans are aware that Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express was inspired by the Lindbergh Baby kidnapping. In the classic mystery, Poirot investigates the murder of Samuel Ratchett. Years ago, Ratchett was behind the kidnapping of “Little Daisy Armstrong,” but he escaped punishment. As Poirot discovers, everyone on the train has a…
She couldn’t have done it… Nan Patterson Nan Patterson was young, she was pretty. In fact, she was a Floradora girl, one of the celebrated lovelies in the Broadway smash of that name. She came from a good family; her father worked in the Treasury Department. Surely, she couldn’t have killed a man. When Caesar…
Death of an American Beauty by Mariah Fredericks is the third book in the compelling Jane Prescott series, set in Gilded Age New York, where the ladies’ maid is determined to discover who is making death into their own twisted art form. Ladies’ maid Jane Prescott’s vacation doesn’t go quite according to plan. First, she’s…
Describe the first time you pictured Jane in your head? Mariah Fredericks: I heard Jane before I saw her. She just started talking to me. She had a very compelling voice and it quickly became clear she had a great story to tell: the truth about a long ago “Crime of the Century.” I knew…
The parents of 3-year-old Michael Scimeca were careful. The little boy was allowed to play in the hallway of their apartment building at 2 Prince Street, but he was not permitted outside without his mother. Not even in 1910, when many neighborhood children left their crowded apartments and took the streets to play. The Scimecas…
My parents were mystery readers. And when my mother died, she left behind a comprehensive library of mysteries popular in the 60s and 70s. Sayers. Le Carré. Margery Allingham. Ngaio Marsh. Most of them were British or British Empire. One lone American stood out: Donald Westlake’s Who Stole Sassi Manoon? Even as a kid, I…
Death of a New American by Mariah Fredericks is the atmospheric, compelling follow-up to the stunning debut A Death of No Importance, featuring series character, Jane Prescott. For some reason, the first thing I understood was the open window, the curtain blowing wildly into the room. A lamp lay overturned on the floor, a little china dog…
Through her exquisite prose, sharp observation, and deft plotting, Mariah Fredericks invites us into the heart of a changing New York in her remarkable debut adult novel, A Death of No Importance. You’ll likely go into this novel as I did, thinking it’s essentially Downton Abbey with a murder mystery, though set on our side of…
