In the Shadow of Gotham - Tapa dura

Advance Praise for "In the Shadow of Gotham""Pintoff's debut... will remind many of Caleb Carr at his best... The period detail, characterizations and plotting are all top-notch, and Ziele has enough depth to carry a series."--"Publishers Weekly "(starred review)"The first winner of the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Competition nicely contrasts academic theorizing with the reality of police detection set against the backdrop of a vividly depicted turn-of-the-century Gotham. Recommend to readers who enjoy historicals of this period, such as Caleb Carr's "The Alienist" and Ann Stamos's "Bitter Tide"."--"Library Journal" (starred review)"Pintoff excavates a rich vein of early criminology... She also delivers a gripping detective story... Great for dexterous plotting and for New York atmosphere at the turn of the last century."--"Booklist""What a fabulous first novel... Pintoff's fascinating historical mystery has believable multidimensional characters... The mystery is original and carefully planned."--"Romantic Times""Congratulations to Stefanie Pintoff on this outstanding debut novel! An appealing character, terrific suspense, and skillful interweaving of historical detail make "In the Shadow of Gotham" a winner."--Marcia Muller, author of "Burn Out""Stefanie Pintoff captures time and place expertly while displaying the procedures and challenges of police work at the dawn of a new age in forensics in this fine first novel. "In The Shadow of Gotham "will fascinate and educate even as it holds the reader in the suspense of a good mystery. That's a special package."--Michael Koryta author of "Envy the Night"

Minotaur and the MWA's inaugural competition winner is an atmospheric, taut, and truly original historical mystery with an engaging main character and a gorgeously rendered setting: turn-of-the-century New York. Detective Simon Ziele lost his fiancee in the wreck of the General Slocum and shortly thereafter headed to Westchester County to escape the violence of the city. But just a few months into his tenure, he catches the worst homicide of his career: a young woman is brutally murdered in her own bedroom in the middle of a winter afternoon. A day's investigating leads him to Columbia University's noted criminologist, Alistair Sinclair, and one of his subjects, Michael Fromley, who has a history of violent behaviour and brutal fantasies. But what would lead him to target Sarah Wingate, a notable mathematics grad student at Columbia? Is it really Michael behind the murder, or is someone else copying his signatures? This is what Simon Ziele must discover, with the help of the brilliant but self-interested Alistair Sinclair, before the killer strikes again.