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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Apr 2018, 288 pages
Paperback:
Mar 2019, 288 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Natalie Vaynberg
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Through her exquisite prose, sharp observation and deft plotting, Mariah Fredericks invites us into the heart of a changing New York in her remarkable debut adult novel.
New York City, 1910. Invisible until she's needed, Jane Prescott has perfected the art of serving as a ladies' maid to the city's upper echelons. When she takes up a position with the Benchley family, dismissed by the city's elite as "new money", Jane realizes that while she may not have financial privilege, she has a power they do not - she understands the rules of high society. The Benchleys cause further outrage when their daughter Charlotte becomes engaged to notorious playboy Norrie, the son of the eminent Newsome family.
But when Norrie is found murdered at a party, Jane discovers she is uniquely positioned - she's a woman no one sees, but who witnesses everything; who possesses no social power, but that of fierce intellect - and therefore has the tools to solve his murder. There are many with grudges to bear: from the family Norrie was supposed to marry into, to the survivors of a tragic accident in a mine owned by the Newsomes, to the rising anarchists who are sick of those born into wealth getting away with anything they want. Jane also knows that in both high society and the city's underbelly, morals can become cheap in the wrong hands: scandal and violence simmer just beneath the surface - and can break out at any time.
1
I will tell it. I will tell it badly, forgetting things that are important and remembering things that never happened. In that, this narrative will be no different than any other. Only the specifics of what is forgotten and remembered will distinguish it as mine.
Why tell it at all, then—a story already so well known, concerning, as it does, wealthy families, a handsome couple, and murder?
Because the story you have heard is wrong. The headlines you've seen, the editorials bemoaning the sorry state of our modern world—all sincere and well intentioned. But since they did not know the truth of the matter, all quite beside the point.
Many decades have passed. There is no one now living who experienced that particular horror—except for myself. And who am I to claim to know the truth behind what may have been the first of the many Crimes of the Century?
Nobody. Less than nobody.
I was Charlotte Benchley's maid.
But before you dismiss my tale as a gain-inspired fantasy ...
A Death of No Importance is a simple, clean-cut mystery that yields easily to anyone in search of a satisfying read. A shrewd and exacting reader may find "holes" in the plot – for example, the facility with which everyone seems to open up, or the level of access a lady's maid seems to have to everyone and everything she seeks – but for those willing to suspend disbelief, this is a great way to spend a few hours and maybe even learn something about the New York of a different time...continued
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(Reviewed by Natalie Vaynberg).
Laura Joh Rowland
A sharp, engaging, and intimate treat of a historical mystery. Jane Prescott is a smart detective and a keen observer of both the upper crust and the dark underbelly of early twentieth century New York society. Meg Cabot
A Death of No Importance has such rich historic detail that you feel as if you've been transported to early twentieth century New York. Mariah Fredericks is the best at creating compulsively addictive, fresh, twisty reads. Nancy Bilyeau
A suspenseful, moving, sharply observed mystery that illuminates a fascinating time in America's history, when there was indeed ugliness beneath the beauty of the Gilded Age. Susan Elia MacNeal
A taut, suspenseful, and complex murder mystery with gorgeous period detail. Susan Elia MacNeal
Fredericks has written a taut, suspenseful, and complex murder mystery with gorgeous period detail.
For her novel, A Death of No Importance, Mariah Fredericks borrows heavily from the story of Evelyn Nesbit and the violence that surrounded her life. What exactly happened to Evelyn Nesbit and how did she come to be a part of the "Trial of the Century" as it later came to be known?
Nesbit was born Florence Evelyn Nesbit on December 25, 1884, in Tarentum, a small town near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. However, her actual year of birth remains unconfirmed; her real year of birth may have been 1886. In later years, Nesbit confirmed that her mother at times added several years to her age in order to circumvent child labor laws. She was raised in extreme poverty after the death of her father. Although her mother and brother tried to make ends ...
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