Published – July 2019- Corvus Books (UK)
Synopsis
New York in 1803 is rife with tension as the city expands, and whoever knows where the city will build can control it. And violence builds as a mysterious provocateur pits the city’s black and Irish gangs against each other.
When a young black girl is found stabbed to death, both Justy Flanagan, now a City Marshal, and Kerry O’Toole, now a school teacher, decide separately to go after the killer. They each find their way to a shadowy community on the fringes of the growing city, where they uncover a craven political conspiracy bound up with a criminal enterprise that is stunning in its depravity.
Justy and Kerry have to fight to save themselves and the city, and only then can they bring the girl’s killer to justice.
Review
I was gifted this novel before release by Readers First.
As a historical thriller set in New York in the 1800s I wasn’t sure what I was expecting especially as I hadn’t read the first novel with these characters but Paddy Hirsch sets an exceptional scene. I could picture every scene clearly and I could hear the characters American and Irish drawls clear as day in my head while I was reading. I will say one thing – I found the lingo difficult in places as I often had to refer to the translation listings in the back of the book to tell me what some of the words meant!
The narrative flows really well, switching between Justice (Justy) and Kerry smoothly and allowing the reader to follow the storyline with ease. I really enjoyed these characters and I will definitely be getting the first novel from this author so that I can catch up however I don’t feel I needed to read it to understand what was happening in Hudson’s Kill.
Overall I would recommend this novel to those who read novels such as CJ Sansom & SJ Parris and enjoy the historical aspect to those novels.
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