June 1, 2016
Sixteen-year-old Amanda Burton is thrilled to be spending the summer with her debonair Uncle John at the glamorous Dakota apartments on New York City's Central Park West. It is 1924, and Amanda's father and stepmother have taken off for Tibet. Uncle John lives the high life, which involves a passing acquaintance with notorious gangsters and club owners Owen Madden and Larry Fay. One morning Amanda finds John dead in his library, a hatchet buried in his skull, and soon the police are fitting her for the frame. So when her dear friend Miss Lizzie Borden (yes, that Lizzie Borden who allegedly gave her mother 40 whacks) shows up, Amanda is grateful. Returning to Lizzie's story after 1989's Miss Lizzie, Satterthwait has reimagined his protagonist as an elderly crime-solving investigator. VERDICT Better known for his "Joshua Croft" series, the author creates a charming character in Amanda, but Miss Lizzie is the draw; colorful secondary characters are also essential to the plot. Stuart Kaminsky fans will enjoy this one.
Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
April 4, 2016
In the summer of 1925, Amanda Burton, the 16-year-old narrator of Satterthwait’s sparkling sequel to 1989’s Miss Lizzie, journeys from Boston to Manhattan to visit an uncle she’s never met, John Burton. This debonair and mysterious relative introduces her to Broadway, the Dakota, and the Cotton Club before she discovers him dead from hatchet blows a week into her stay. Amanda—whose odious stepmother was ax murdered in the previous outing—is detained and interrogated by the police before she reencounters her old (and elderly) friend Lizzie Borden, who has her chum Dorothy Parker in tow. With help from John’s colorful cronies, including a hit man whose aim is almost as lethal as Parker’s tongue, the women investigate the dead man’s dealings with New York’s speakeasy underworld. Another two murders put Lizzie as well as Amanda under suspicion. The novel’s assured and witty voice holds its disparate elements together, and Satterthwait deftly captures the verve of the Prohibition era as well as its unsavory edges.
Starred review from May 1, 2016
Decades after Miss Lizzie (1989), Satterthwait brings back the infamous Lizbeth Bordenwith her friend and neighbor, teenager Amanda Burton, as narratorin a whirlwind, high-stakes exploit in 1924 New York. When her father and stepmother set off on an international expedition, 16-year-old Amanda goes to New York to spend the summer with her father's younger brother, John, in his apartment at the Dakota. In the first week, handsome broker John Burton opens up the city to his niece, taking her to shows, restaurants, and his favorite night spots, even introducing her to some of his less-savory associates. Then tragedy strikes, putting Amanda in peril until Miss Borden comes to her aid, along with a notoriously successful and unscrupulous lawyer, a private eye, men for muscle, and Dorothy Parker. Together they seek to understand the bloody crime just committed, using everything at their disposal, most particularly guile. Satterthwait, author of the Joshua Croft series, is a master of historical mystery, here evoking the Roaring Twenties and adding historical figures to his well-drawn cast, with Mrs. Parker contributing a delightful touch of wry. This is a lively, nonstop romp, carried with an unfailingly light touch, rising body count aside.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)