New York Nocturne

Lizzie Borden and Amanda Burton join forces with Dorothy Parker to solve a grisly murder in Prohibition-era New York in this “assured and witty” mystery (Publishers Weekly).   Sixteen-year-old Amanda Burton is thrilled to be spending the summer in New York City at her glamorous uncle John’s apartment in the Dakota while her parents are off visiting Tibet. It’s 1924, the decade is roaring, and she’s out on the town every night with her father’s flamboyant younger brother—seeing Broadway shows, going to fancy restaurants and speakeasies, meeting John’s rich and famous friends, and even an occasional gangster.   It’s all great fun—until the morning she stumbles upon her uncle dead on the floor with a hatchet blade buried in his skull. And with Amanda as the prime murder suspect, the New York City cops consider the case as good as closed.   Luckily the hapless teen has an old ally in town: the infamous—albeit acquitted—alleged axe murderess Lizzie Borden. Miss Lizzie and her new pal, the renowned acerbic wit Dorothy Parker, are on the job faster than you can say, “Forty whacks.” But trolling the glittering New York night scene and underworld for a killer can be a dangerous occupation for an old lady with a shady past, a sharp-witted literary icon, and a teenager with a history of violently losing relatives—especially when they keep turning up dead bodies.

“Satterthwait is a master of historical mystery, here evoking the Roaring Twenties and adding historical figures to his well-drawn cast. . . . This is a lively, nonstop romp, carried with an unfailingly light touch, rising body count aside.” —Booklist   “The novel’s assured and witty voice holds its disparate elements together, and Satterthwait deftly captures the verve of the Prohibition era as well as its unsavory edges.” —Publishers Weekly   “Satterthwait creates a charming romp through New York City at its darkest but most sparkling. . . . As light-hearted as murder mysteries come, peppered with party scenes worthy of Gatsby.” —RT Book Reviews

Walter Satterthwait (b. 1946) is an author of mysteries and historical fiction. A fan of mystery novels from a young age, he spent high school immersed in the works of Dashiell Hammett and Mickey Spillane. While working as a bartender in New York in the late 1970s, he wrote his first book: an adventure novel, Cocaine Blues (1979), about a drug dealer on the run from a pair of killers.   After his second thriller, The Aegean Affair (1982), Satterthwait created his best-known character, Santa Fe private detective Joshua Croft. Beginning with Wall of Glass (1988), Satterthwait wrote five Croft novels, concluding the series with 1996’s Accustomed to the Dark. In between Croft books, he wrote mysteries starring historical figures, including Miss Lizzie (1989), a novel about Lizzie Borden, and Wilde West (1991), a western mystery starring Oscar Wilde. New York Nocturne (2016) is his most recent novel.