{"id":6720,"date":"2025-10-24T06:38:34","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T13:38:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=6720"},"modified":"2025-10-24T06:38:34","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T13:38:34","slug":"rosemary-simpson-in-deadly-fashion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/rosemary-simpson-in-deadly-fashion\/","title":{"rendered":"Rosemary Simpson: In Deadly Fashion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gilded Age #10<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Rosemary Simpson’s two protagonists in her Gilded Age series set in New York city are heiress and lawyer Prudence MacKenzie and ex-Pinkerton agent Geoffrey Hunter,\u00a0 partners in an investigative law firm.\u00a0 Prudence is a member of New York’s elite, known as the Four Hundred, but she has defied society’s conventions and become one of the first female lawyers in the city, even though she is frustrated that she has not yet been allowed to argue a case in court.\u00a0 Geoffrey is a Southerner who grew up on a plantation, but he left for the North as a young man because of his antislavery views, and decided to build a life for himself in New York.\u00a0 The two of them have had a slow-burning romance since the beginning of the series.\u00a0 Geoffrey realized he loved Prudence before she realized she loved him, and once she acknowledged her feelings, she resisted marriage for a long time because she didn’t want to give up her independence.\u00a0 But now they are finally engaged and, as this book begins, in the late summer of 1891, the wedding date is set for mid-September, just a few weeks away.<\/p>\n

Prudence had wanted to wear her late mother’s wedding dress, but she finds the dress has deteriorated too badly.\u00a0 She doesn’t have time to travel to Paris and order a new dress from the House of Worth, the first choice among fashion houses for the Four Hundred, but instead, she orders one from Madame R\u00e9gine, a young up-and-coming designer in New York.\u00a0 R\u00e9gine, born Regina Healy, grew up in the tenements, but overcame her background and studied in Paris at the House of Worth.\u00a0 R\u00e9gine is thrilled to have Prudence as a client, and hopes that her connections will lead to more clients among the ladies of New York’s high society.<\/p>\n

Things go horribly wrong, though, when Prudence and Geoffrey come to R\u00e9gine’s studio to pick up the wedding dress.\u00a0 They find the head seamstress, Brenda Leavitt, murdered, with Prudence’s new dress cut to shreds and strewn around her body.\u00a0 A gold necklace is found in the closet where the dress was kept.\u00a0 The murder case is assigned to Detective Stephen Phelan, a police officer who enjoys beating up suspects and who has a grudge against Prudence and Geoffrey because, in the first case where they encountered him, they succeeded in finding the killer when he didn’t.\u00a0 Knowing they will have no help from the police, Prudence and Geoffrey decide to solve the murder on their own, along with their network of friends.<\/p>\n

At first the prime suspect is Brenda’s boyfriend, who mysteriously disappeared shortly before the murder, but it turns out that the man was a private inquiry agent named Anthony Nichols, sent to spy on R\u00e9gine’s salon.\u00a0 Prudence and Geoffrey find him at the bank, closing out his account, and then they catch up to him in his office, but he won’t tell them anything.\u00a0 He’s also in a hurry to leave town.\u00a0 Geoffrey enlists the help of Amos Lang, another ex-Pinkerton agent who is a master of disguise and who has a gift for vanishing into a crowd, to find out what he can about Nichols.\u00a0 When Amos comes to Nichols’ office, though, he finds the man shot to death.<\/p>\n

Now Prudence and Geoffrey have two murders to solve, and the prime suspect in the first murder is dead.\u00a0 Prudence suspects that a rival fashion designer hired Nichols to steal designs from R\u00e9gine’s salon.\u00a0 In the cutthroat world of high fashion, spying on rivals is very common.\u00a0 Prudence thinks Nichols used Brenda to steal for his employer.\u00a0 Did Brenda threaten to tell on him?\u00a0 And why kill Nichols?<\/p>\n

A Frenchman, Th\u00e9odore Delahaye, a former lover of R\u00e9gine’s when she lived in Paris, shows up in New York with a portfolio of designs and offers to work for another leading designer, Catherine Donovan, who is immediately suspicious of him and contacts Prudence for help.\u00a0 Prudence recognizes some of the designs as R\u00e9gine’s, and she also learns that Delahaye abused R\u00e9gine when they were lovers.\u00a0 She agrees that Donovan should hire Delahaye, though, to keep an eye on him.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the necklace found at the scene of Brenda’s murder provides an important clue.\u00a0 Geoffrey recognizes it immediately as belonging to a woman from his past.\u00a0 Inez Purcell grew up on a neighboring plantation, and she and Geoffrey were childhood friends.\u00a0 Their families had hoped the two of them would marry, and Inez came to expect that Geoffrey would propose to her.\u00a0 Geoffrey, though, decided to make a life for himself in the North.\u00a0 Inez got pregnant by another man and got rid of the baby, leaving her unable to have another child.\u00a0 She moved to New York and married another man, but she has always blamed Geoffrey for not marrying her when she thought he should have, and for her inability to have children.<\/p>\n

Geoffrey finds out from his cousin Nathaniel, a university professor who also lives in New York and who, it is suggested, is one of Inez’s many lovers, that Inez is in New York, which Geoffrey hadn’t known before, and that she is now a widow.\u00a0 Her husband died in mysterious circumstances, bitten by black widow spiders in his bed.\u00a0 Geoffrey is skeptical about that.\u00a0 How did black widow spiders happen to be there, and nowhere else in the house?\u00a0 He realizes Inez is a very dangerous woman, and that she’s obsessed with him.\u00a0 Will he be able to keep her away from Prudence, and make sure the wedding takes place?<\/p>\n

In Deadly Fashion<\/em> is one of the strongest entries in a very strong series.\u00a0 It is a bit unusual because we know early on who the villains are, and some parts of the book are told from their point of view, which I usually don’t care for, but this time it works.\u00a0 The suspense does not have to do with who committed the crime–even though we are not exactly sure until the end exactly which villain committed which crime–but with how the villains are caught and whether the wedding will go forward.\u00a0 I actually feared for Prudence’s life at times, and even though I know this is a series and she must survive, still there were some close calls.<\/p>\n

I enjoyed Simpson’s insights into high fashion in the Gilded Age, and the intricacies of life among New York’s social elite.\u00a0 There is a delightful subplot where R\u00e9gine asks Prudence to introduce an awkward young debutante to society and, in the process, to find new clients for the designer, since the murder is ruining R\u00e9gine’s business. \u00a0R\u00e9gine’s creations turn this ugly duckling into a swan.\u00a0 One of the rules was that a woman must not wear the same dress twice, so you can imagine how much it must have cost them, to have a new dress on hand for each social occasion.<\/p>\n

One of this series’ strengths, besides Prudence and Geoffrey, is its cast of supporting characters.\u00a0 I have already mentioned Amos Lang, the ex-Pinkerton agent.\u00a0 Another great character is Josiah Gregory, Prudence’s and Geoffrey’s secretary.\u00a0 He is always meticulously dressed and keeps detailed notes on all their cases.\u00a0 Prudence and Geoffrey know they would be lost without him.\u00a0 Then there is Ned Hayes, a former police detective who saved the life of one of New York’s gang leaders, which led to his dismissal from the police.\u00a0 The criminal underworld leaders feel obligated to him, and the police are afraid of him, so it is best to stay on his good side.\u00a0 Luckily for Prudence and Geoffrey, he is always willing to help them.\u00a0 One of the most delightful characters is Danny Dennis, a hansom cab driver, with his huge white horse Mr. Washington.\u00a0 Danny runs a network of street urchins, who often help Prudence and Geoffrey.\u00a0 And when the two protagonists need to go somewhere quickly, Danny is always there with his hansom cab.<\/p>\n

Even though it is the tenth book in the series, In Deadly Fashion<\/em> can be read on its own.\u00a0 It is not necessary to start at the beginning with this series.\u00a0 I admit that I didn’t, and that I still haven’t read a few of the early ones.\u00a0 Since this book marks a new beginning for Prudence and Geoffrey, it might actually be a good one to begin with.\u00a0 Not to give away too much, but there is a tantalizing clue at the end, that the next book might not take place in the usual setting.\u00a0 I recommend these books for fans of other authors of Gilded Age mysteries, such as Alyssa Maxwell and the late great Victoria Thompson, who is sadly missed.\u00a0 Another series, terribly neglected in my opinion, which uses a similar setting is Kathleen Marple Kalb’s series featuring opera singer Ella Shane–one which I was very glad to learn will continue with its new publisher. —\u00a0Vicki Kondelik<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gilded Age #10 Rosemary Simpson’s two protagonists in her Gilded Age series set in New York city are heiress and lawyer Prudence MacKenzie and ex-Pinkerton agent Geoffrey Hunter,\u00a0 partners in an investigative law firm.\u00a0 Prudence is a member of New York’s elite, known as the Four Hundred, but she has defied society’s conventions and become … 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":[2304,1469,10,2302,162,2303,470,273,1069],"class_list":["post-6720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-geoffrey-hunter","tag-gilded-age-new-york-city","tag-historical","tag-in-deadly-fashion","tag-kensington-books","tag-prudence-mackenzie","tag-rosemary-simpson","tag-vicki-kondelik","tag-weddings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6720","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=6720"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6723,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6720\/revisions\/6723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}