Mariah Fredericks

Mariah Fredericks: Murder on 34th Street

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What Fredricks has put under the tree for her readers this year is an instant Christmas classic, the kind of book you might reach for every December – but only if your taste runs to a few murder victims in Santa’s bag.  Set in 1932, main character Grace Verlander is in charge of much of the big Macy’s Thanksgiving day parade, an event as big in 1932 as it is today.  Her biggest headache is that someone has threatened Santa Claus, and she must do everything she can to keep the big fellow safe despite the chaos of the parade. read more

Best of 2025

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Best of the year lists are so difficult!  I’ve given myself leeway to divide books into categories – cozy, historical, best all around – giving me a chance to spotlight more great reads.  All of the reviews appear either on this website or over at Deadly Pleasures (or both).  Deadly Pleasures also features my pared down top 10 list.  Here are 30 great reads culled from the 100 or so books I read each year.  My standard is simple – a book that stays with me long after I finish it, great writing, great characters.  There are veterans and newbies here.  Dive in! read more

Mariah Fredericks: The Girl in the Green Dress

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I love the way Mariah Fredericks writes. Her prose sings.  And if you are going to write about one of the greatest of all prose stylists, F. Scott Fitzgerald, you’ve got to have game yourself. While Scott and the lovely Zelda are not the main characters in this novel, they certainly inform it in every possible way.  The main character is a much lesser-known writer of the time, Morris Markey.  Markey, a friend of James Thurber’s and James M. Cain’s, wrote for The New Yorker and wrote extensively (for the purposes of this novel) about the still unsolved murder of James Elwell in 1920, a “swell” found shot through the head in his library.  His house happens to be across the street from Markey’s and he is one of the last people to have seen him alive, very early the morning of his death. read more

Mariah Fredericks: The Wharton Plot

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I am a big fan of Mariah Fredericks’ vivid historical fiction.  I adore her Jane Prescott series, featuring a lady’s maid in 1910 New York, in which Jane ends up investigating crimes with the blessing of the family she works for, often with the help of a friendly investigative reporter.  Mariah’s now moved toward standalone historical novels – in 2022’s The Lindbergh Nanny she followed the kidnapping through the eyes of the nursemaid to the baby.  In The Wharton Plot, Edith Wharton herself takes on the true murder of a well known (at the time) author, David Graham Phillips. read more

Best of 2022

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I had a really, really hard time keeping this to 10 books – hence my lengthy honorable mention list this year.  This is the first year this list is all women!  That was my goal when I closed the store – to cover new series and books by women and it looks like that’s what’s happening organically.  These are the books that stuck with me all year, books that when I read them, I was entranced and transported. They appeared in different ways. Mariah Fredericks pressed an early advance copy of The Lindbergh Nanny into my eager hands at Malice Domestic last spring – it was a book I was very excited to read and I was not disappointed.  I saw the cover of Blackwater Falls and it called to me – again, I was not disappointed.  I was interested to see Deanna Raybourn doing something so different – again, no disappointment.  It’s such a fun journey of discovery. Some on this list are veterans turning in great books, some are new series or standalones – all have that great, memorable sparkle.  What a wonderful year to be a reader. I did include one reference book this year, one so exceptional it would be criminal not to give it a shout out. read more

Reviewers & Book Club Faves

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Our two regular reviewers, Cathy Akers-Jordan and Vicki Kondelik, have shared their top 10 lists with us, and the book club chimes in on their favorite reads of the year as well.  Lots of good reading here!

Cathy:

Daughter of the Morning Star, Craig Johnson.  The new Longmire book is always the highlight of my mystery-reading year. The rez isn’t part of Walt Longmire’s jurisdiction, but when Tribal Police Chief Lolo Long recruits Walt and Henry to protect her niece, we learn the shocking statistics on the abuse and murder of Indian Women. Walt deals with a teenage basketball star while trying his best to keep her alive. read more

Best of: History Mystery 2021

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After we closed the store and my reading was slightly less proscribed by authors visiting or the latest new thing, I realized that one of the genres I truly love is historical mysteries. The range is so wide – in story telling style, in time period, in characters, and the armchair history lessons always, always add to my reading enjoyment.  The fact that the books are set in the past makes the detective rely much more on old fashioned, golden age style sleuthing methods, another attraction, as far as I’m concerned.  Thanks to Mystery Scene Magazine as well as my own reading, I find I read pretty widely in this subgenre.  Here are my 10 favorites this year. One of them I liked so much it’s on my all around top 10 list (stay tuned!) read more

Mariah Fredericks: Death of a Showman

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I love this vibrant, lively, insanely readable series, a series that takes unexpected turns with its characters but still hews to the traditional norms of historical mystery fiction.  The first book in the series, A Death of No Importance, was a fabulous origin story, where ladies’ maid Jane Prescott takes on the nouveau riche Benchley family in the first decade of the twentieth century.  The books are set in New York City and the Benchley girls are viewed as rich upstarts, and Jane’s special charge, Louise, is shy and gauche and seems to fit in nowhere. read more

Rosemary Simpson: Death, Diamonds and Deception

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Death, Diamonds, and Deception is the fifth book in Rosemary Simpson’s Gilded Age mystery series set in New York City in the 1880s.  It’s the first I’ve read, but I enjoyed it so much that I will definitely look for the others.  The two protagonists are heiress Prudence MacKenzie and ex-Pinkerton agent Geoffrey Hunter, who are partners in a detective agency.  Prudence is the daughter of a wealthy judge, a prominent man in New York, who died about two years before this book begins.  She is part of the city’s elite, the world of the Astors and Vanderbilts, even though she defies the standards of that society by becoming a detective.  Geoffrey is a Southerner who came to New York around the time of the Civil War because he was anti-slavery.  He is quite a bit older than she is.  Prudence is around twenty, and, although Geoffrey’s age is not specified, it seems that he was already an adult at the time of the Civil War, so he must be in his early forties at least. read more

Mariah Fredericks: Death of an American Beauty

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I remember when Rhys Bowen started writing her Molly Murphy series.  I inhaled them the second they were published.  I loved (and still do) the mix of the feisty Molly, her journey of discovery as a new immigrant, the clever mysteries, and the turn of the century settings.  Rhys Bowen has the gift of narrative.  I am so happy to tell you – because I want to make you a fellow fan – that Mariah Fredericks has that very same gift.

I have so far inhaled all three of her books featuring ladies’ maid Jane Prescott, who works for the wealthy Mrs. Louise Tyler around the 1910’s.  She has a way with a story, and a way of getting you to care about and be invested in her characters.  In this novel Jane is on “vacation”, so she goes home.  Home for Jane is a refuge for fallen women, run by her uncle, a Presbyterian pastor.  He takes women who come from the streets and gives them a place to live, something to eat, and a little hope for the future and a different way of earning a living. read more