"Social history is, most elementally, food history. Jane Ziegelman had the great idea to zero in on one Lower East Side tenement building, and through it she has crafted a unique and aromatic narrative of New York's immigrant culture: with bread in the oven, steam rising from pots, and the family gathering round." — Russell Shorto, author of The Island at the Center of the World

97 Orchard is a richly detailed investigation of the

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"In the late nineteenth century, as cities like Boston and New York grew larger, the streets became increasingly clogged with horse-drawn carts. When the great blizzard of 1888 brought New York City to a halt, a solution had to be found. Two brothers--Henry Melville Whitney of Boston and William Collins Whitney of New York City--pursued the dream of his city being the first American metropolis to have a subway and the great race was on. The competition...

In 1846, waves of Irish immigrants poured into the New York neighborhood of Five Points. "Billy the Butcher" bands his fellow "Native Americans" into a gang to take on the Irish gang "The Dead Rabbits," organized by Priest Vallon. After an bloody clash Vallon is dead and his son ends up in a brutal reform school. In 1862, that boy returns to seek vengeance against the man that killed his father.

On Long Island, a farmer finds a duck pond turned red with blood. On the Lower East Side, two boys playing at a pier discover a floating human torso wrapped tightly in oilcloth. Blueberry pickers near Harlem stumble upon neatly severed limbs in an overgrown ditch. Clues to a horrifying crime are turning up all over New York, but the police are baffled: There are no witnesses, no motives, no suspects. The grisly finds that began on the afternoon of...

In 1880s New York, Beatrice, unaware of her spiritual gifts, applies for a job at a teashop for female occultists run by Adelaide Thom and Eleanor St. Clair and with their help, she faces down the dark forces lurking in the city. New York, 1880. Séances are the entertainment of choice in exclusive social circles, and many-- some with true powers, others gifted with the art of performance-- find work as mediums. At Tea and Sympathy, Adelaide Thom...

New York City, winter 1888. A jewel thief dubbed "Robin Hood of the Lower East Side" has been stealing from the city's wealthiest and giving to the poor. Genevieve Stewart, who forged a life of her own as a reporter, decides to chase the story. But she gets more than she bargained for: a murder victim sprawled in a dark alley in the dangerous Five Points neighborhood. A tough comes to her rescue, but she encounters the same man at a glamorous ball...

"In the midst of Sarah and Frank's wedding preparations, Sarah accompanies her mother on a condolence call to the Upper West Side, where Charles Fairfax, the son of family friends, has died unexpectedly after suffering from a mysterious disease. It is a tragic and all-too-common story or so it seems. Charles's father asks to speak with Sarah privately. He believes his son was poisoned and would like Sarah and Frank to look into the matter with the...

"When facing injustice, the residents of nineteenth-century New York City's tenements turn to midwife Sarah Brandt and Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy to protect their rights. Now, as the Edgar and Agatha Award-nominated series continues, the two must track down a cruel criminal preying on the hopes and dreams of innocent women A Gaslight Mystery Frank Malloy has never known any life other than that of a cop, but his newfound inheritance threatens...

"In nineteenth-century New York City, a wealthy newlywed is found bludgeoned to death with his wife cradling his body, too horrified to speak. The police charge her with murder and it's up to the other members of the newly formed household to do some detective work to solve the mystery"--

In the shadow of the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, eighth-graders and new neighbors Bird Mallon and Thomas Neary make some decisions about what they want to do with their lives.