Murder on Astor Place By Victoria Thompson

This book was amazing!!!! I loved it!!! This is the first mystery book I have read in a while, and I am very glad I read it!! The main reason I loved it so much is because all of the pieces of everything came together, like math. All of the clues added up into the final solution. Additionally, I loved the plot of the story. A young girl who lives at a boarding house is murdered. A detective and a midwife are trying to solve her murder. When I first picked up this book, I just thought it would be a simple murder mystery. They try to find the killer by looking at clues and stuff like that. It was nothing like that at all. The midwife recognized the girl as the sister of an old friend the night before the murder and that is how she got involved. The girl was actually very rich and had run away from a country home her father had sent her to. The detective and midwife question all of the servants and her groom (horse person) and family. In the middle of the book, you find out her father was setting up a marriage between the girl, Alicia, and a sixty year old lawyer. I found that absolutely repulsive and so did the midwife, Sarah. I also learned, toward the end of the book, that Alicia's father, Mr. VanDamm, had had a sexual relationship with his eldest daughter, Mina, and then Mina had Alicia. He also had a sexual relationship with Alicia, who had been pregnant at the time of her death. Sarah and the detective are trying to find the killer and the father of Alicia's baby during the whole book. They found in the second to last chapter. This book takes place in around 1900 and I got to learn the massive cultural difference from then and now. They have servants and butlers and maids and the marriage and sex ideas are very different from now. I think it is disgusting and so do most people now, but the culture was different back then and this may have not been as repulsive as it is now. The poor were not well respected at all. Sarah's mother is very wealthy and her maid gives Sarah a look when she wants to visit her mother because of her clothing. Overall, I loved this book and hope to read more from this author in the near future.