Jane Austen meets Sherlock Holmes when a crime wave sweeps through 19th-century London's Jewish community and the adventures of wealthy-widower-turned-sleuth Ezra Melamed are recorded for posterity by Miss Rebecca Lyon, a young lady not quite at the marriageable age.
In this third volume of the series, tragedy strikes when the Jewish orphanage's children are stricken with a mysterious and nearly fatal stomach ailment. When the ailment travels to the Mayfair home of Lady Marblehead, a young Jewish physician is accused of poisoning his patients - a suspicion that is further fueled when a priceless pearl bracelet is discovered missing from Lady Marblehead's jewellery box.
As more outbreaks occur, an increasingly hysterical community turns to Mr Ezra Melamed to investigate the case. But once again there are too few clues and too little time, especially since the littlest victim, a frail orphan boy, is already almost at death's door.
A great pleasurable mixture of British and Jewish existence in London that just sparkled! The authors prologue just made me chuckle and made me hope that everyone reading the book would not miss it. An assembly of tea party guests that just sets the story off and running. The characters were so unique in each of their own ways that I enjoyed them all. I felt so sorry for all the children that lived in orphans at that time and worse for all the little street urchins just trying to keep alive. I even made room in my heart for the poor elderly people of the street, such a horrible way to live and yet so very common at the time. Story has a great mixture of history, culture at the time! This is a short unique story that I truly believe will make everyone think, chuckle and enjoy! I have never read a book like this and thoroughly enjoyed it, enough that I went and bought the other three in the series!
In this third volume of the series, tragedy strikes when the Jewish orphanage's children are stricken with a mysterious and nearly fatal stomach ailment. When the ailment travels to the Mayfair home of Lady Marblehead, a young Jewish physician is accused of poisoning his patients - a suspicion that is further fueled when a priceless pearl bracelet is discovered missing from Lady Marblehead's jewellery box.
As more outbreaks occur, an increasingly hysterical community turns to Mr Ezra Melamed to investigate the case. But once again there are too few clues and too little time, especially since the littlest victim, a frail orphan boy, is already almost at death's door.
A great pleasurable mixture of British and Jewish existence in London that just sparkled! The authors prologue just made me chuckle and made me hope that everyone reading the book would not miss it. An assembly of tea party guests that just sets the story off and running. The characters were so unique in each of their own ways that I enjoyed them all. I felt so sorry for all the children that lived in orphans at that time and worse for all the little street urchins just trying to keep alive. I even made room in my heart for the poor elderly people of the street, such a horrible way to live and yet so very common at the time. Story has a great mixture of history, culture at the time! This is a short unique story that I truly believe will make everyone think, chuckle and enjoy! I have never read a book like this and thoroughly enjoyed it, enough that I went and bought the other three in the series!
