Brooklyn Legacies: An Erica Donato Mystery

Stein’s entertaining fifth mystery featuring Brooklyn historian Erica Donato (after 2017’s Brooklyn Wars) finds Erica searching for a long-lost plaque that identified the building where Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass was printed. Her quest takes her to Brooklyn Heights, where she meets her idol: scrappy, aging activist Louisa Gibbs. Louisa’s next-door neighbors are Jehovah’s Witnesses, whose headquarters loom over her garden. Church officials claim that a strip of her property actually belongs to them, and the real estate developers to whom they hope to sell their building won’t close the deal until the boundary dispute is resolved. Louisa asks Erica to research her family home’s history in readiness for the inevitable court battle. When the church official handling the real estate deal is found dead, Donato ends up investigating not only his murder but also a crime that rocked Brooklyn Heights back in the psychedelic ’60s. This lively tale illustrates the evolution of a fascinating New York neighborhood. The love for Brooklyn that Stein shares with her protagonist shines through on every page. (Dec.)