Rating: 
Summary: A great new series starring a refreshing heroine
Review: Though her family is farmers in Ballykillion, Ireland, Molly Murphy received an education way beyond the normal level for her station in life. When her mother died, her education and her dreams died too as Molly takes over running the house for her father and brothers. Now, twenty-three, Molly flees her home when she accidentally kills the landowner's son Justin Hartley by shoving him away from her when he tried to rape her. He fell and hit his head.
Molly reaches Liverpool where Kathleen O'Connor, dying from consumption, offers a fresh start. Molly escorts Kathleen's two young children across the Atlantic to their father pretending to be their mother. On the overcrowded ship, Molly meets the odious O'Malley who knows she is not Kathleen and the young kindhearted Michael Larkin. At Ellis Island, Molly and her charges await approval to leave for New York City when someone kills O'Malley. Molly and Michael who had public run-ins with the nasty victim are the prime suspects especially since she was seen near the male dorm, the crime scene locale. Molly knows she must prove her innocence though all the evidence makes her seem guilty.
MURPHY'S LAW is a superb historical mystery starring a delightful cast, but what make this tale so good is the descriptions of the era. The ship voyage and the time on Ellis Island are so vivid; readers will taste the salt air. The mystery is also cleverly conceived leading sub-genre fans to conclude that Rhys Bowen is quite a talent (see her Evan Evans series if a reader has doubts). Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: Good historical detail--too much coincidence in mystery
Review: When she is forced to flee turn-of-the-century Ireland for killing her landlord, Molly Murphy assumes the identity of a woman heading for New York. When a murder occurs on Ellis Island, Molly is a suspect. By coincidence, the woman whose identity she assumed was from the same small town as the victim. To protect herself and the only friend she made on the ship (who, coincidentally, was also from the same small town), she has to discover the killer. Fortunately, Molly can't walk down the street without running into a suspect, each of whom is acting out his guilt. Molly's extreme good luck is fortunate since all she knows about the killer is that he had whiskers (and she goes through much of MURPHY'S LAW accusing everyone with whiskers of the crime). (Coincidentally, Molly had gone walking on the night of the murder and seen the murderer). Author Rhys Bowen is a talented enough writer to weave even a long string of coincidences into an interesting story. It is obvious that she has done extensive research on turn-of-the-century New York, and the historical detail is both interesting and well integrated into the story. Unfortunately, Molly Murphy, the protagonist, spends much of the novel with her nose in the air looking down on other people which, for this reviewer, at least, makes her so wonderfully unsympathetic that I had ambivalent feelings about her...
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