Last Stop in Brooklyn

Last Stop in Brooklyn by Lawrence H. Levy   320 pages

This book is the third in the Mary Handley series. I haven’t read the first two. As with most books in series, they can be read alone, but it helps when to have read the previous entries, especially when the author make a reference to the plots.

The time is 1894, and the story takes place in Brooklyn, New York. Mary is the borough’s first female detective. Her case begins with a seemingly easy circumstance of adultery, which takes her to the downside of Coney Island. I had hoped to read more about the amusement park’s heyday, but those are the details that Levy leaves out.

I got real confused after that. I’m not sure where the second part of her case, solving the murder of a Coney Island-prostitute. There was so much detail (except about Coney island) that I was often lost. Most of it was things the readers didn’t need to know. I know that writers are supposed to know everything about their characters,, but the reader doesn’t. I often got bored before I reached the end of a paragraph.

This books has other problems: the characterizations seemed off, the dialogue didn’t seem appropriate to the time, and I just couldn’t care about the problems of any of these people.  Therefore Last Stop in Brooklyn receives 2 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world. I did love the cover and the title, which saved it from a 1-star rating.

I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for this review.