Through Gold Eagle

Monfredo (The Seneca Falls Inheritance, etc.) scores with another compelling mid-19th century mystery starring librarian/feminist Glynis Tryon. The sinuous plot skillfully incorporates significant political and social changes of the time, from women's suffrage to banking reform and Isaac Singer's revolutionary sewing machine. In May 1859, after a year's visit with her brother's family in Illinois, Glynis returns to Seneca Falls, N.Y., bringing along her niece Emma. A man is murdered on their train shortly after handing her a pouch containing money and a ring and mentioning Seneca Falls. Back home, Glynis is absorbed in a variety of problems: her assistant has wasted library funds on romance novels; counterfeit money and weapons thefts are rife; seven more people die; and her old swain, Sheriff Cullen Stuart, has a new lady friend. Monfredo deftly gathers these subplots into a coherent tale that leads to a finale in a panther den. There, Glynis corners the mastermind responsible for the crimes, solving a case which is tied to funding John Brown's attack on Harper's Ferry and to attempts by abolitionists and the English to hasten a civil war. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frederick Douglass and John Brown appear but don't overshadow the commanding cast of fictional characters, including a new romantic interest for Glynis. (July)