One of the pleasures of reading is armchair travel. Sometimes the location is new and unexplored; other times it is familiar. New York, for me, is a bit of both. After living there briefly years ago, it’s that rare city that is simultaneously intimate and foreign.
Fortunately, there are no shortage of ways to return through books. No year of reading goes by without a few New York stories. Here are three mysteries that took me back.
1.
One of my favorite discoveries, this noir introduces Chico Santana, a private investigator who is hired by his foster brother to locate his missing cousin, a Juilliard violin student. After hooking up with a woman who offers him money NOT to locate the girl, things get complicated.
It all develops into an engaging and gripping plot featuring a family secret, a thinly veiled story by a Columbia student, and a surveillance video from a restaurant called The Chinatown Angel. I enjoyed every minute of it.
There is a disappointing second novel which features another of Chico’s foster brothers. I think this was originally planned as a series featuring Chico helping boys from the reform school he attended. It seems to have stalled there.
2.
Set in colorful Williamsburg, this is the first in a series featuring Lydia McKenzie, a photographer and amateur sleuth. After an art show, a murder occurs that is staged to look like one of Lydia’s photographs. She and a pal are soon on the case, with reluctant help from a local detective.
There was a lot that I enjoyed in this. The artist’s world was interesting, there are some great hipster details (like a character named Phoenix with Egyptian tattoos), and there are some funny lines. All in all, an enjoyable jaunt.
3.
This has one of the best premises I have found in this category. Rebekah Roberts was raised by her father after her mother returned to a Hassidic community in Brooklyn. In the present, Rebekah is a cub reporter dispatched to a murder there. The crime and her absent mother inevitably cross.
While I enjoyed the book, I think the third in the series – about a wrongly accused Crown Heights resident and the history of that community – is the best overall of the series.
Books Smitten 