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A review by leelah
One Night, New York by Lara Thompson
3.0
3,5*
Every year during Harrogate's Theakston Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival, the Scottish Queen of mystery, Val McDermid presents noteworthy novels from debut authors on her New Blood panel. I can honestly say this is the one I religiously follow because she knows hers stuff (many of her picks went to win Edgars and Daggers) and I discovered many great authors this way.
One of this year's picks was Lara Thompson's One Night, New York and I was incredibly happy to get a copy through Edelweiss as it was the one I wanted to read right away.
Set in Depression-era New York, the novel follows Francine, a young girl who ran away from Kansas to join her brother in the city. In the opening scene Francine and another woman are waiting for someone at the top of the skyscraper and we are aware they have some nefarious plans with this man. The novel then throws us narratively few months back as we discover the events that led to the pivotal meet up at the top of the building.
This being a historical crime novel, I'd say it's the historical part where it excels. The mystery part of the novel is rather simple, but keeps you intrigued and turning pages to see what went down, but still, firmly set in the background. Of course there is murder and horrible things happening to people like Francine, but there is this pervasive feeling that these things are everyday occurrence and like they are intimate problems, and they can't really do anything about it unless they take the matters in their own hands. This is not a bleak outlook, just the way things worked in Depression-era New York. Thompson lost me a bit in the way she was building this part of story because Francine stumbled on people who turn out to be important almost by accident creating this feeling that it's a really small world.
Setting being its main selling point,this novel exudes the atmosphere. Thompson accomplished this in several ways as it wasn't done only through descriptions of smells, people and buildings that fill up the picture in your head. There is this micro view of single girl's experience in new city and through her unfiltered point of view you fill in the rest without the need of history lesson. The thing about Francine is that she is a perfect conduit to depict how the life in 1932. New York looked like. She is young, but curious enough to ask questions and try new things. She doesn't know how to read or write, so she understands things by actually experiencing them. Francine won't explain you what led to poverty, racial divides, gender-roles and breadlines- she lives in the smallest room with smallest kitchen with thinnest walls and this is living in New York for her. Faithful meeting with Dicky and Jacks during her train ride who live in Greenwich Village is her insight into the life of richer and swankier and she sees the other side of New York as well. It's the perfect dichotomy of lifestyles ans she treads in both world carefully not feeling she belongs really, but somehow belonging in New York just the same.
But to bring another layer to this fictional portrait of New York to life, Thompson introduces Frances to another woman, Agnes, who works as Dicky's assistant and is a great photographer in her own right. Per writer's words Agnes and her pictures of skyscrapers that forever immortalized the ever-changing city was inspired by great Berenice Abbott and her Changing New York project. The inspiration goes beyond the superficial and into the core of what was Abbott trying to do with her iconic collections of photographs.
All in all, a great historical crime debut with emphasis on the historical part.
I want to give my thanks to Edelweiss+, Lara Thompson and Pegasus Books for providing me with a review copy of this novel, I enjoyed it a great deal. All opinions are my own.
Every year during Harrogate's Theakston Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival, the Scottish Queen of mystery, Val McDermid presents noteworthy novels from debut authors on her New Blood panel. I can honestly say this is the one I religiously follow because she knows hers stuff (many of her picks went to win Edgars and Daggers) and I discovered many great authors this way.
One of this year's picks was Lara Thompson's One Night, New York and I was incredibly happy to get a copy through Edelweiss as it was the one I wanted to read right away.
Set in Depression-era New York, the novel follows Francine, a young girl who ran away from Kansas to join her brother in the city. In the opening scene Francine and another woman are waiting for someone at the top of the skyscraper and we are aware they have some nefarious plans with this man. The novel then throws us narratively few months back as we discover the events that led to the pivotal meet up at the top of the building.
This being a historical crime novel, I'd say it's the historical part where it excels. The mystery part of the novel is rather simple, but keeps you intrigued and turning pages to see what went down, but still, firmly set in the background. Of course there is murder and horrible things happening to people like Francine, but there is this pervasive feeling that these things are everyday occurrence and like they are intimate problems, and they can't really do anything about it unless they take the matters in their own hands. This is not a bleak outlook, just the way things worked in Depression-era New York. Thompson lost me a bit in the way she was building this part of story because Francine stumbled on people who turn out to be important almost by accident creating this feeling that it's a really small world.
Setting being its main selling point,this novel exudes the atmosphere. Thompson accomplished this in several ways as it wasn't done only through descriptions of smells, people and buildings that fill up the picture in your head. There is this micro view of single girl's experience in new city and through her unfiltered point of view you fill in the rest without the need of history lesson. The thing about Francine is that she is a perfect conduit to depict how the life in 1932. New York looked like. She is young, but curious enough to ask questions and try new things. She doesn't know how to read or write, so she understands things by actually experiencing them. Francine won't explain you what led to poverty, racial divides, gender-roles and breadlines- she lives in the smallest room with smallest kitchen with thinnest walls and this is living in New York for her. Faithful meeting with Dicky and Jacks during her train ride who live in Greenwich Village is her insight into the life of richer and swankier and she sees the other side of New York as well. It's the perfect dichotomy of lifestyles ans she treads in both world carefully not feeling she belongs really, but somehow belonging in New York just the same.
But to bring another layer to this fictional portrait of New York to life, Thompson introduces Frances to another woman, Agnes, who works as Dicky's assistant and is a great photographer in her own right. Per writer's words Agnes and her pictures of skyscrapers that forever immortalized the ever-changing city was inspired by great Berenice Abbott and her Changing New York project. The inspiration goes beyond the superficial and into the core of what was Abbott trying to do with her iconic collections of photographs.
All in all, a great historical crime debut with emphasis on the historical part.
I want to give my thanks to Edelweiss+, Lara Thompson and Pegasus Books for providing me with a review copy of this novel, I enjoyed it a great deal. All opinions are my own.