The Lace Widow

Perfect for fans of Amanda Flower and Deanna Raybourn, taking us from the city’s gilded mansions to its meanest streets, Mollie Ann Cox’s debut historical mystery puts us at center stage in a time of grave political danger. Could Alexander Hamilton be at the center of a vast murder plot engulfing Old New York?

New York, 1804. America’s beloved Alexander Hamilton lies dead after a duel with Aaron Burr. One by one, witnesses to the bout are being killed. As Hamilton’s widow, Eliza, pieces together why, she unearths a heartbreaking secret and a dangerous lie that points to another murder—unless she can prevent it.

Eliza’s eighteen-year-old son, Alexander Jr., was seen fighting with a man in a tavern the night before the duel and comes under suspicion for murder. Eliza searches for ways to clear her son’s name, even as she is grieving. And as she combs through her late husband’s papers, she finds evidence of a plot to steal money from the government during his tenure as Secretary of State. Hamilton was accused of stealing that money, and it was a scandal that almost broke the family—but is Eliza now holding proof of Alexander’s innocence?

Deep in debt and despair, with eight children to support, Eliza turns to selling her handmade lace—and is drawn into a mysterious network of widow lacemakers who are intimately connected to New York’s high-society families. They know their dead husbands’ secrets—and soon, Eliza begins to piece together the truth.

There’s a dark plot connected with the duel, and there are some willing to kill to keep it a secret. Now, Eliza must not only clear her husband’s and son’s names, but keep herself out of the killer’s sights.