{"id":6084,"date":"2024-11-17T07:05:41","date_gmt":"2024-11-17T15:05:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=6084"},"modified":"2024-11-17T07:05:41","modified_gmt":"2024-11-17T15:05:41","slug":"rosemary-simpson-death-takes-the-lead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/rosemary-simpson-death-takes-the-lead\/","title":{"rendered":"Rosemary Simpson: Death Takes the Lead"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gilded Age #9<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Death Takes the Lead<\/em> is the ninth book in Rosemary Simpson’s Gilded Age Mystery series set in New York City in the 1890s, with protagonists Prudence MacKenzie and Geoffrey Hunter.\u00a0 Prudence comes from one of New York’s wealthiest families–one of Mrs. Astor’s Four Hundred.\u00a0 Rebelling against the life of a society lady, she has passed the New York bar and become one of the first female lawyers in the state.\u00a0 Geoffrey is an ex-Pinkerton agent and a Civil War veteran.\u00a0 He is the son of a Southern plantation owner and, after seeing the horrors of slavery firsthand, has run away from his home and fought for the North.\u00a0 Both characters are rebels against the society in which they were born, and the two are now partners in an investigative law firm.\u00a0 A slow-burning romance has developed between them, and, I am pleased to say, without giving away too much, this book takes it to a new level.<\/p>\n

In the spring of 1891, Prudence’s friend Lydia Truitt, a Civil War widow with a talent for crime investigation, who has helped Prudence in some of her previous cases, invites her to attend the rehearsal of a Scottish play (no, not that<\/em> Scottish play) in order to meet Lydia’s cousin Septimus Ward, who plays one of the leading roles.\u00a0 Lydia and Septimus come from a family of vaudeville performers, but Lydia rejected the life of the stage, and Septimus wants to break through into the “legitimate” theater.\u00a0 Vaudeville was seen as a lower-class entertainment and looked down on by respectable society.<\/p>\n

The company’s manager Barrett Hughes directs, produces, and plays the lead in the new play.\u00a0 He also claims to have written it, but after the rehearsal, Prudence and Lydia hear a fierce argument between Hughes and Septimus, where Septimus says he actually wrote the play, but allowed Hughes to claim authorship in exchange for casting Flora Campbell, the woman Septimus loves, as the female lead.\u00a0 Now that it looks as though the play will be a hit, Septimus wants to reclaim his authorship.\u00a0 He also wants Prudence to represent him in court.<\/p>\n

Prudence is glad to take the case, but before he can officially become her client, Septimus dies in Lydia’s arms.\u00a0 In a drunken stupor, he has supposedly mistaken a bottle of rat poison for whiskey.\u00a0 The police are all too willing to believe Septimus’ death to be an accident, but Prudence, Lydia, and Geoffrey disagree, and an autopsy performed by a doctor who’s a friend of Geoffrey’s reveals that someone deliberately put arsenic in Septimus’ whiskey.<\/p>\n

The police are unconvinced and unwilling to investigate, so Prudence and Lydia go undercover as members of the theater company’s costume shop.\u00a0 Prudence has to take quick lessons from her maid, Colleen, on how to sew and iron, and she never does learn well enough to please the wardrobe mistress.\u00a0 Then the body of a seamstress is discovered, suffocated in a costume trunk.\u00a0 Once again, the police declare the death to be an accident, saying improbably that the young woman accidentally fell into the trunk and got trapped when the lid closed on her.\u00a0 Prudence and Lydia, of course, are sure the woman was murdered, and they figure the seamstress was killed because she knew something about Septimus’ murder.<\/p>\n

Their prime suspect is Hughes, who they quickly discover is a sexual predator who forces the female members of the company, including the current leading lady, Flora, to sleep with him in exchange for casting them in roles.\u00a0 (Sadly, the theater manager as predator is a topic that could be pulled from today’s headlines.)\u00a0 It turns out that Hughes has a long history of sexual assault, as two elderly Civil War veterans, Lydia’s blind father and his caretaker, help Prudence and Lydia to discover.\u00a0 The caretaker, Clyde Allen, lost half his face in the war and was a patient in a hospital tent where a much younger Hughes and his company came to perform.\u00a0 Clyde witnessed the rape of a nurse, Vivian Knowles, by Hughes, but was too badly wounded to leave his bed and help her.\u00a0 He has felt guilty about his inability to help Vivian ever since, and also seems to have unacknowledged romantic feelings for her.<\/p>\n

Shortly after the seamstress’ body is found, two “accidents” happen, first to Lydia, then to Prudence, and both are badly injured.\u00a0 Of course, these are not accidents at all, but deliberate attempts to stop them from investigating.\u00a0 Did Hughes cause the accidents, or did another member of the company?\u00a0 Or is someone else targeting the company and trying to keep the play from opening?<\/p>\n

One aspect of this novel that I especially enjoyed is the role played by two female doctors.\u00a0 Vivian, the nurse raped by Hughes during the Civil War, has now become a doctor, and Clyde brings her to New York where she wishes to see Hughes again and exorcise the demon of her past.\u00a0 She also helps to heal Lydia’s wound.\u00a0 There’s also the Quaker doctor Charity Sloan, who makes regular appearances in the series, and who cares for Prudence while she recovers.<\/p>\n

This is a wonderful series, with a strong and independent heroine who defies the conventions of society to make a life for herself as a lawyer.\u00a0 Prudence loves Geoffrey, but one of the reasons she takes a while to acknowledge her feelings for him is that she doesn’t want to marry and give up all her rights.\u00a0 Geoffrey is a supportive partner for her.\u00a0 He wants to keep her out of danger, but he knows she will go ahead and investigate, and he tells her that, when they get married, she will maintain her independence.<\/p>\n

I will say, though, that Geoffrey doesn’t have as much of a role in this novel as he usually does.\u00a0 It’s Prudence and Lydia who do most of the investigating.\u00a0 Geoffrey won’t leave Prudence’s side after she is wounded, and instead sends another ex-Pinkerton, Amos Lang, into the field.\u00a0 Amos is a fascinating character who has an ability to blend into whatever setting he’s in.\u00a0 His appearance is, as he himself says, forgettable, and he uses it to his advantage, so he is able to gather a lot of information without anyone remembering him.\u00a0 Other supporting characters I really enjoy are Danny Dennis, a hansom cab driver with his enormous white horse, Mr. Washington, and his network of street urchins, who help Prudence and Geoffrey with their cases.\u00a0 Also, the firm’s secretary, Josiah Gregory, is a great character with his ability to take notes very quickly, and his perceptive nature.\u00a0 He knows Prudence and Geoffrey are falling in love before they know their own feelings.<\/p>\n

In this particular book, I especially enjoyed the details of the New York theater world of the time, when the managers of theatrical companies had absolute power over the actors and the backstage crew.\u00a0 Of course, with a sexual predator like Hughes in charge, it led to many abuses.\u00a0 This was also a time when theaters were switching over from gaslights to electric lights, changing the way the plays were lit and affecting the movements of the actors on stage.<\/p>\n

This book can stand on its own, but I would recommend reading the previous books in the series to see how the relationship between Prudence and Geoffrey develops.\u00a0 I highly recommend Simpson’s books to fans of other Gilded Age mystery authors such as Alyssa Maxwell<\/a> and the late Victoria Thompson<\/a>, who will be sadly missed.\u00a0 Her fans, I’m sure, will be glad to find Simpson’s series if they’re looking for mysteries set in the same place and time, and with a heroine who comes from the same social background as Thompson’s heroine.\u00a0 This is a great series, and I am looking forward to seeing what the future has in store for Prudence and Geoffrey.\u00a0\u00a0— Vicki Kondelik<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gilded Age #9 Death Takes the Lead is the ninth book in Rosemary Simpson’s Gilded Age Mystery series set in New York City in the 1890s, with protagonists Prudence MacKenzie and Geoffrey Hunter.\u00a0 Prudence comes from one of New York’s wealthiest families–one of Mrs. Astor’s Four Hundred.\u00a0 Rebelling against the life of a society lady, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1922,1921,469,10,162,470,1018,273],"class_list":["post-6084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-1891-new-york-city","tag-death-takes-the-lead","tag-gilded-age","tag-historical","tag-kensington-books","tag-rosemary-simpson","tag-theater","tag-vicki-kondelik"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6084"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6086,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6084\/revisions\/6086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}