Death of a Robber Baron - (Gilded Age Mysteries (Kensington)) by Charles O'Brien (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Set amidst the glittering enclaves of money, power, and privilege in America's tumultuous Gilded Age, this richly detailed mystery follows private detective Pamela Thompson into an elite world where fortunes are flaunted and scandals are hidden-one body at a time... DEATH OF A ROBBER BARON New York City, 1891. In the spirit of Christmas, Mrs. Pamela Thompson has devoted herself to charity work, even taking an orphaned child into her Greenwich Village townhome. Her husband Jack, an ambitious banker, agrees to such generous acts as long as his wife allows him to invest his time-and her trust fund-in more lucrative opportunities. But when he risks their entire fortune on questionable copper stocks, Pamela ends up losing everything: her house, her inheritance, and even her husband... Penniless, Pamela is forced to move into a boarding house in the Lower East Side and accept a position at Macy's-as a store detective. Displaying an uncanny knack for the job, she's asked to investigate a private matter of thievery at a palatial "cottage" in the Berkshires. Ironically, her employer is none other than Henry Jennings, the infamous "Copper King" who sold bad stocks to her husband. But when the filthy rich scoundrel is found dead in his study, Pamela holds herself accountable-for sorting out this whole sordid business of money, motives...and murder.

About the Author

Charles O'Brien decided to try his hand at writing historical mysteries due to a lifelong love of delving into the past James Joyce's Dubliners and Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop have both influenced his writing style. He lives with his wife, Elvy, an art historian, in Williamstown, a small college town in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts.