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Sarah Decker Brandt, daughter of a wealthy family, widow of a doctor, continues her work among the poor women of New York in this, the fifth book of the series. Sarah is a nurse-midwife who despairs at the poverty of the immigrant families with whom she works. Her family despairs that she insists on working with these people instead of looking for a husband among their own class. When Sarah agrees to accompany Richard Dennis, a bank vice president to a social function, her parents are delighted. Perhaps Sarah is rethinking her life and her association with Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy. However, Dennis wants Sarah to help him understand his wife's death, several years before. She had been a volunteer at the Prodigal Son Mission in the Mulberry Bend section of New York, the most crime-ridden section of the turn-of-the century city. Sarah had helped Frank's son, Brian, a child considered to be mentally and physically retarded because he had a club foot and is deaf. Sarah had a doctor friend operate on Brian and the toddler can now walk. Frank considers himself in her debt but he dares not act on his growing affection for her because they are of different social classes. Sarah seems impressed with the work of Mrs. Wells at the mission which tries to take young girls off the streets and teach them a trade. She takes some of her cast-off clothes for the girls. The next day, Frank is called to the site of a murder in City Hall Park. He is shocked when he finds what he thinks is Mrs. Brandt lying murdered in the park. It turns out to be a young woman from the mission who has the same color hair and general build as does Sarah. The powers-that-be aren't very interested in the murder of an Italian immigrant girl, but Sarah convinces Frank to continue. I liked the earlier books in this series better than this one, perhaps because proselytizing Christians aren't my favorite people. The views of the levels within the immigrant community are also fascinating. The Irish priest won't say mass for the murdered Italian girl because the Italians aren't as good as the Irish. This is a series worth reading.
Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, March 2003
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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