annieb123's Review of A Golden Grave (Rose Gallagher Mystery, #2)

by Erin Lindsey

Rose Gallagher always dreamed of finding adventure, so her new life as a freshly-minted Pinkerton agent ought to be everything she ever wanted. Only a few months ago, she was just another poor Irish housemaid from Five Points; now, she’s learning to shoot a gun and dance the waltz and throw a grown man over her shoulder. Better still, she’s been recruited to the special branch, an elite unit dedicated to cases of a paranormal nature, and that means spending her days alongside the dashing Thomas Wiltshire.

But being a Pinkerton isn’t quite what Rose imagined, and not everyone welcomes her into the fold. Meanwhile, her old friends aren’t sure what to make of the new Rose, and even Thomas seems to be having second thoughts about his junior partner. So when a chilling new case arrives on Rose’s doorstep, she jumps at the chance to prove herself - only to realise that the stakes are higher than she could have imagined. Six delegates have been murdered at a local political convention, and the police have no idea who–or what–is responsible. One thing seems clear: The killer’s next target is a candidate for New York City mayor, one Theodore Roosevelt.

Convinced that something supernatural is afoot, Rose and Thomas must track down the murderer before Roosevelt is taken out of the race–permanently. But this killer is unlike any they’ve faced before, and hunting him down will take them from brownstones to ballrooms to Bowery saloons. Not quite comfortable anywhere, Rose must come to terms with her own changed place in society–and the fact that some would do anything to see her gone from it entirely.

Originally published on my blog Nonstop Reader.

A Golden Grave is the second book in the Rose Gallagher paranormal cozy series by Erin Lindsey. Released 17th Sep 2019 by Macmillan on their Minotaur imprint, it's 400 pages and available in hardcover, paperback, audio, and ebook formats.

This is a nice period cozy mystery with romance and some paranormal plot threads. Rose is a newly graduated Pinkerton agent who worked as a housemaid before becoming an investigator. There is a lot of upstairs/downstairs subplot action going on and some exploration of the rigid society rules which defined class in 1886.

The plot is woven around a skeleton framework of actual historical events and people in NYC during the time period (1886) covered in the book. The author has done some research and if the actual racism and class resentment, corruption, sexism, and anarchy of 'real' history is smoothed over somewhat to make it more palatable for readers, I, for one, didn't mind at all. It's not missing, it's just toned down a bit.

The plot is easy to follow, the characters are reasonably well developed, the romance elements are slow moving (and chaste), the murders are bloodless (well, mostly bloodless), and for readers new to the series, it works perfectly well as a standalone novel. I did enjoy it and the scope of 'luck' (psychic talents) seems almost endless - it seems inevitable that there will be more books along soon. The author has a readable, accessible, entertaining writing style and I enjoyed my first introduction to this series enough that I intend to go and seek out the first book.

Four stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

A Golden Grave (Rose Gallagher Mystery, #2)

by Erin Lindsey

Reviewed by annieb123 on Nov 18, 2019

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