For the Love of Mike, Rhys Bowen, St. Martin's Minotaur, $6.99.
Like Margaret Maron, Rhys Bowen has created not one, but two enjoyable series, and it's this second one, her Molly Murphy
series, that I enjoy most, though her Evan Evans series is also a delight. The first Molly novel,
Murphy's Law, was
a well deserved Agatha award winner for best novel, and this one is every bit as wonderful as the first one. Molly has made
her way to America after enduring a close call with a would be rapist in her native Ireland, and Molly's entrance into New
York through Ellis Island was not only memorable, but I think one of the only accounts I've ever read of that particular
time and place in a mystery. In this novel, Bowen tackles a similarly compelling topic - the plight of the immigrant
sweatshop workers in America before unionization. All of them, of course, were female. A strong political polemic could
obviously be written about this time and place, but as Bowen is a novelist, she shows instead of telling. Molly finds
herself working in a sweatshop by way of an investigation she's taken on in her job as a detective. The misery, exhaustion,
and frustration Molly feels is mirrored around her a hundred times over as she tries to ferret out a spy who's been stealing
designs from the sweatshop owner. At the same time, Molly's taken on a missing persons case - though finding a missing Irish
girl named Katherine Kelly seems to me like looking for a needle in a haystack, Molly is relentless in her search.
Bowen has a skill that another author I admire very much, Carolyn Keene, employed in her more than successful Nancy
Drew books - she is able to make each chapter a complete little unit, with a cliffhanger at the end of it. This makes it
very difficult for the hapless reader to actually put this book down before exhaustion sets in at the end of the evening,
and it made me, as a reader of many mystery novels, greatly admire the craftsmanship that went into this one - that was
after I inhaled the story in a few greedy gulps, however. Suffice it to say that before the end of the story, not only has
Molly found a new love interest, she's moved into a house of her own, and the two jobs she's taken on begin to intersect in
dangerous ways. Molly even spends the night in jail. The most memorable parts may truly be the parts inside the sweatshop,
though, and that may be the bit you take with you after you've finished the book. That, and a restless desire to know exactly
which of her love interests Molly will choose. I for one don't think a writer as canny as Rhys Bowen will be giving the
answer to that question away anytime soon - we'll just have to read all the delightful installments to come to find out.
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