Molly Murphy Sullivan is still learning her new role as a stay-at-home mother, though she retains a lively interest in the work of her husband, Daniel, a NYPD captain. One chilly day in February 1907, Molly and her ward, Bridie, join neighbors in distributing coats and other warm clothing to newly arrived passengers at Ellis Island, many ill-equipped for the cold New York winter. While there, Bridie gets separated from the group, after following a woman who looks just like Molly and almost being detained with other Irish immigrants. That evening, Daniel reports that there was a murder on Ellis Island, with the detained woman, Rose, who looks like Molly, accused of the crime. Molly inserts herself into the case, believing Rose to be innocent and sympathetic to her plight, as it parallels her own first days in New York. For this eighteenth in the series, Bowen is joined by a coauthor, her daughter Clare Boyles, and the pair delivers a satisfying domestic mystery, rich in the details of running a middle-class urban household in the early twentieth century.

A marriage is imperiled by that age-old threat: the wife's desire to continue sleuthing. Most women in 1907 are wives and mothers who stay home to care for their families. But restless former private detective Molly Murphy envies her husband Daniel's job as a New York City detective. When Sid and Gus, the eccentric neighbors with whom she's shared past adventures, ask her to help with a clothing drive set up by the Vassar Benevolent Society to take clothes to newly arrived immigrants at Ellis Island, the task plunges her into a dangerous and exciting murder case. Molly's ward, Bridie, a bright young girl Gus and Sid have offered to tutor because she's chronically underserved at school, is invited along. When they arrive on the island, Bridie accidentally follows a woman who looks like Molly--a woman who later turns out to be the chief suspect in the murder of an unidentified man that Daniel's investigating. Molly is predisposed to finding Rose McSweeney innocent, for she naturally sees herself in the beautiful Irish immigrant and soon befriends her, much to the disapproval of Daniel, who wants her to stay far from his case. Despite his stern warnings, Molly continues to make inquiries, and she eventually turns up a great deal of new evidence the police would never have found. The investigation moves slowly as it awaits information from Ireland and England, but Molly, undaunted, continues to champion Rose, who may not be what she seems. The clever and adventurous heroine dissects a complicated mystery while standing up for women's rights. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Anthony and Agatha honoree Bowen joins forces with her musician/teacher daughter on the next Molly Murphy mystery, which finds our protagonist home in 1907 New York and no longer in the detective game. But her skills are still required when she goes to Ellis Island with friends to help distribute clothing to those in need; later, her policeman husband reports that a murder on the island seems to have been committed by someone looking exactly like Molly. With a 60,000-copy first printing.

Set in 1907, bestseller Bowen's uneven 18th Molly Murphy mystery (after 2017's The Ghost of Christmas Past), coauthored with daughter Broyles, takes Molly to Ellis Island one cold winter day to help distribute warm clothing to immigrants. There Molly encounter a near-ringer for herself, Rose McSweeney, who--as Molly's husband, police captain Daniel Sullivan, tells her that evening--is suspected of fatally stabbing a man in an Ellis Island storeroom. The corpse carries no identification, the murder weapon is missing, and the story of the witness who claims he saw Rose leaving the murder scene doesn't entirely add up. Herself an Irish immigrant once falsely accused of a crime, Molly is determined to clear the woman's name despite Daniel's opposition. Hiding her plans, she tracks Rose to the boarding house in which the police are keeping watch on her and strikes up a friendship. Well-drawn family dynamics and Molly's feisty personality compensate only in part for a mystery in which her blindness to obvious clues isn't credibly explained by her emotional investment in the case. Still, series fans will enjoy catching up with Molly and company. Agents: Christina Hogrebe and Meg Ruley, Jane Rotrosen Agency. (Mar.)