Second Street Station: A Mary Handley Mystery (Mary Handley, #1)

by Lawrence H. Levy

A historical mystery featuring the witty and wily Mary Handley, the first woman detective in Brooklyn, as she tries to prove herself in a man's world while solving a high profile murder.
 
Mary Handley is a not your typical late-nineteenth century lady. She's fiery, clever, daring—and she’s not about to conform to the gender norms of the day. Not long after being fired from her job at the hat factory for insubordinate behavior, Mary finds herself at the murder scene of Charles Goodrich, the brother of a prominent alderman and former bookkeeper of Thomas Edison. When Mary proves her acumen as a sleuth, she is hired by the Brooklyn police department—as the city’s first female policewoman—to solve the crime. The top brass of the department expect her to fail, but Mary has other plans. As she delves into the mystery, she finds herself questioning the likes of J. P. Morgan, Thomas Edison, and Nikola Tesla. Mary soon discovers the key to solving the case goes well beyond finding a murderer and depends on her ability to unearth the machinations of the city’s most prominent and respected public figures, men who will go to great lengths to protect their secrets.

Much like Mr. Churchill’s Secretary and Maisie Dobbs, Second Street Station presents a portrait of a world plunging into modernity through the eyes of a clever female sleuth. Mary Handley is an unforgettable protagonist whose wit, humor, and charm will delight readers from the very first page.

Don’t miss any of Lawrence H. Levy’s enchanting Mary Handley mysteries:
SECOND STREET STATION • BROOKLYN ON FIRE • LAST STOP IN BROOKLYN • NEAR PROSPECT PARK (Coming Soon!)

• ISBN10: 0553418920
• ISBN13: 9780553418927
• Publish Date: 9 June 2015 (first published 1 January 2015)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Broadway Books (A Division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc)
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 336
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780553418927

Reviews

[Beth C.]

She's poor, has a mother that insists she "marry up", and is smarter than most people of the period feel comfortable with. And then, in a twist of fate, she ends up as the first paid female policewoman for the Brooklyn Police Department. Mary Handley is clever, strong, and stubborn, and determined to be successful in a job she has dreamed about.

I am a huge Maisie Dobbs fan - the series has roped me in, and even if I sometimes think it has gone off the rails a little bit, I still reach for the next book in the series. The Mary Handley books, should they become a series, will not be the same. While I enjoyed the story to a degree, I mostly just finished it because I felt like I should. My biggest problem with the book as a whole was the over-explanation of *everything*. For a mystery, some things should be left for the reader to imagine and to figure out. With "Second Street Station", that wasn't really possible. The back says that the author, Lawrence H. Levy is a film and TV writer, so maybe that is bleeding over into the novel? Whatever it is, it was annoying and showed a distinct lack of trust in the reader.

As for the storyline itself, I found myself veering between interest and a complete lack of suspension of disbelief. Levy wanted the book to be historically accurate in whatever ways were possible, but I often found myself distracted by the constant big-name dropping. It just didn't seem as realistic as if it were just a couple of them woven in. It just felt like too much, too often. And honestly, the set up that gets Mary her job didn't seem very realistic either.

Honestly, it wasn't a BAD book. But it definitely has its flaws. I wouldn't take the time in the future to read any more of the Mary Handley books unless someone I trusted declared them amazing and I could trust that the issues I mentioned had been fixed (because they are fixable).