The House on Mulberry Street

THE PLOT Esther Breslau is a Jewish immigrant who has found a job working as a photographer in the graft-filled world of 1895 Manhattan. John Tonnerman is an honest cop, a rare commodity on a police-force filled with those on the take and in a city where your innocence depends on the size of your pocketbook.Esther takes a picture during a riot and the thugs notice and come after her. A reporter she's been working with has the plates but the thugs worry about what he knows and take matters into their own hands to silence him forever.John and Esther try to figure it all out.WHAT I LIKED / DIDN'T LIKE The characters are numerous but sufficiently different that they don't run together. A few of the characters will likely show up in future stories, and hopefully were fleshed out for that reason. The reporter is fleshed out a little too much at the start considering he's the one who is killed, but it is the first in the series, and Meyers had to introduce Esther enough at the start that you get to know the reporter a little too well for a corpse. The research was impeccable, and the epilogue is a nice touch to separate fact from fiction. The writing is first-rate and the settings are alive with the time. Each image portrays the world of the time, and the reader is transported easily with each page.One of the best historical mysteries I have ever read, and one of the better mysteries period.OVERALL RATING 4.50 / 5.00