Starred review from October 2, 2023
What if there was more to Alexander Hamilton’s 1804 death than his duel with political rival Aaron Burr? That intriguing what-if animates Cox’s brilliant debut mystery, which sees Hamilton’s widow, Eliza, investigating his killing. Days after the duel, and before Eliza has had time to properly process its outcome, she witnesses the corpse of John Van Der Gloss being pulled from the North River near her Harlem home with his throat slashed. Van Der Gloss was not only Hamilton’s friend, but one of the only witnesses to his and Burr’s duel. The situation becomes even more personal when Eliza’s teenage son, also named Alexander, becomes the prime suspect in Van Der Gloss’s death. The night before his body was found, Van Der Gloss brawled with the younger Alexander, who told Eliza he’d become upset after hearing Van Der Gloss say “nobody knew the truth” about the duel. Resolved to exonerate her son and investigate Van Der Gloss’s claims about her husband, Eliza starts thumbing through Hamilton’s papers, which leads her down a rabbit hole of secrets and conspiracies involving the U.S. government and New York City’s elite. Cox plausibly recreates 19th-century New York without freezing it in amber, and wrings real emotion out of Eliza’s investigation. Admirers of Mally Becker’s Revolutionary War Mysteries will be delighted. Agent: Jill Marsal, Marsal Lyon Literary.
November 1, 2023
Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton wasn't enough for you? Wish there was a sequel starring the Founding Father's widow? Cox has you covered. Ten days after Alexander Hamilton is shot to death by Vice President Aaron Burr, John Van Der Gloss, a witness to their duel, is fatally stabbed. The leading suspect is Alexander Hamilton Jr., who'd brawled with the victim only hours before the body was discovered. Alexander's arrest weighs heavily on his grieving mother, but Eliza Hamilton isn't one to take things lying down. When she finds a cryptic note from Van Der Gloss on her husband's desk ("You were right, though it pains me to say. There is evidence they set you up..."), she thinks it must refer to the 1797 embezzlement that blackened the former Treasury Secretary's name, and she resolves to find out who's responsible, thinking it may help free her son. Ignoring an anonymous missive that commands her to "mind [her] own affairs--or else!" she begins to question powerful men, who respond with solicitous inquiries about her health. If asking questions is a sign that a woman is addled, imagine the reaction when Eliza bands together with several women living in a group house and ends up going undercover in male attire. Her investigation leads her to a secret society descended from the Bavarian Illuminati and a string of other murders before she's finally able to clear her family's good name with precious little help from any man. A spirited author's note defends Eliza against all possible charges of anachronistic rebelliousness by pointing to the historical evidence that the real Eliza Hamilton had a distinctly modern sensibility. All right, so there's no music and not that much mystery. But you'll cheer the righteous heroine through thick and thin.
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November 1, 2023
In the aftermath of the 1804 duel in which Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton, Eliza Hamilton knows she faces a difficult time keeping her family together and protecting her husband's legacy. This imagined version of the days following the duel also includes having to defend her oldest son, the 18-year-old Alexander Hamilton Jr., against murder charges. Witnesses had seen him fighting with a man whose body was later pulled from the river. When Alice Rhodes, a widow Eliza met through her charitable work, visits to extend condolences, two solutions appear. Alice is able to sell some heirloom lace Eliza has, providing some ready cash, something sorely needed in the overextended Hamilton household. It is Alice's connections, however, that prove useful to Eliza as she seeks to clear her son's name and get to the bottom of what appears to be a conspiracy against her late husband's reputation. Eliza's struggles present a good mystery but also provide a window into the precarious plight of widows and single women in the early years of the new republic.
COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.