cover image For You Were Strangers

For You Were Strangers

D.M. Pirrone. Allium (alliumpress.com), $16.99 trade paper (320p) ISBN 978-0-9890535-9-4

A bustling Chicago, rebuilding in the aftermath of the Great Fire of 1872, provides the backdrop for Pirrone’s richly historic but sometimes lumbering second mystery featuring Frank Hanley and Rivka Kelmansky (after 2014’s Shall We Not Revenge). Hanley, a Chicago police detective, investigates the murder of lawyer Ebenezer Champion, a former captain in the Union army, whose potentially explosive memoirs and legal papers are missing. Meanwhile, Rivka’s long-missing brother, Aaron, his mulatto wife, Ada, and their son, Nat, turn up at her home after racist night riders burn their house in southern Illinois. Fearing that Aaron’s enemies have followed him to Chicago, Rivka turns to Hanley for help. Flashbacks to the struggles of Dorcas Whittier, the daughter of a Tennessee plantation owner, during the final year of the Civil War add color to this complex tale of hidden identities and motives. The budding romance between Hanley and Rivka follows naturally from the sleuthing. (Dec.)