WILD IRISH ROSE

A marriage is imperiled by that age-old threat: the wife’s desire to continue sleuthing.

Most women in 1907 are wives and mothers who stay home to care for their families. But restless former private detective Molly Murphy envies her husband Daniel’s job as a New York City detective. When Sid and Gus, the eccentric neighbors with whom she’s shared past adventures, ask her to help with a clothing drive set up by the Vassar Benevolent Society to take clothes to newly arrived immigrants at Ellis Island, the task plunges her into a dangerous and exciting murder case. Molly's ward, Bridie, a bright young girl Gus and Sid have offered to tutor because she’s chronically underserved at school, is invited along. When they arrive on the island, Bridie accidentally follows a woman who looks like Molly—a woman who later turns out to be the chief suspect in the murder of an unidentified man that Daniel’s investigating. Molly is predisposed to finding Rose McSweeney innocent, for she naturally sees herself in the beautiful Irish immigrant and soon befriends her, much to the disapproval of Daniel, who wants her to stay far from his case. Despite his stern warnings, Molly continues to make inquiries, and she eventually turns up a great deal of new evidence the police would never have found. The investigation moves slowly as it awaits information from Ireland and England, but Molly, undaunted, continues to champion Rose, who may not be what she seems.

The clever and adventurous heroine dissects a complicated mystery while standing up for women’s rights.