City of Fortune

Set in 1919, Thompson’s entertaining sixth Counterfeit Lady mystery (after 2021’s City of Shadows) opens with New York City lawyer Gideon Bates agreeing to attend a horse race at Belmont Park at the invitation of a client, Sebastian Nolan, the owner of a small racing stable. Nolan wants Gideon to bring his wife, Elizabeth, and his upper-crust mother to help put some polish on his motherless grown daughter, Irene, who’s more interested in horse racing than society. The race turns to tragedy when Nolan’s prize horse, Trench, stumbles and the jockey, Cal Regan, is seriously injured in what appears to have been no accident. It turns out Trench was secretly “sponged” so he would falter. Elizabeth takes an interest in the respective fates of Cal and Irene, with whom she becomes friends, and to right a series of wrongs, she helps set up an elaborate con game. The con revolves around a mysterious woman who has come to New York and as a supposed rich Spanish widow steals the show at a series of fancy dinner parties. The light and humorous plot is matched by descriptions of a glamorous city that seems more Gilded Age than post-WWI. This entry should win Thompson new fans. Agent: Nancy Yost, Nancy Yost Literary. (Dec.)