Victoria Thompson’s The Gaslight Mysteries is a series of historical mystery novels. The series takes place in turn-of-the-century New York City. Sarah Brandt, a midwife, is the series’ primary character. She works with Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy to solve mysteries that she encounters.
Victoria Thompson launched her Gaslight Mysteries series with the novel Murder on Astor Place in 1999. The series is currently ongoing, with a new novel being released once a year.
The series has class conflicts and characters operating in varied societies. The author shows a profound level of world-building in turn-of-the-century New York City.
The main character, Sarah Brandt, was raised among the aristocratic Knickerbockers of New York. She married a doctor, went estranged from her family, and now supports herself. She works as a very capable midwife after her husband was killed in an unsolved murder. After finding out about a new murder, she has to solve it, no matter what.
The plot of the book is heavily reliant on layered and deep historical detail. Throughout the series, Sarah can’t help but get involved when bad things happen. This will often put her in dangerous situations, but it doesn’t stop her.
The ongoing series now spans 25 books.
Discover Victoria Thompson’s other books.
Gaslight Mysteries Books in order
Gaslight Mystery
- Murder on Astor Place (1999)
- Murder on St. Mark’s Place (2000)
- Murder on Gramercy Park (2001)
- Murder on Astor Place (2002)
- Murder on Mulberry Bend (2003)
- Murder on Marble Row (2004)
- Murder on Lenox Hill (2005)
- Murder in Little Italy (2006)
- Murder in Chinatown (2007)
- Murder on Bank Street (2008)
- Murder on Waverly Place (2009)
- Murder on Lexington Avenue (2010)
- Murder on Sisters’ Row (2011)
- Murder on Fifth Avenue (2012)
- Murder in Chelsea (2013)
- Murder in Murray Hill (2014)
- Murder on Amsterdam Avenue (2015)
- Murder on St. Nicholas Avenue (2015)
- Murder in Morningside Heights (2016)
- Murder in the Bowery (2017)
- Murder on Union Square (2018)
- Murder on Trinity Place (2019)
- Murder on Pleasant Avenue (2020)
- Murder on Wall Street (2021)
- Murder on Madison Square (2022)
Similar authors
- Anna Lee Huber’s Lady Darby Mysteries follow the artistic sleuth, Lady Kiera Darby. She uses her love for the macabre to solve crimes in 1830s Scotland.
- Andrea Penrose’s Wrexford & Sloane features an aristocratic scientist and a satirical artist. Together they solve Regency England’s crimes.
See also: Bess Crawford Books in Order.
Most recommended books of the series
- Murder in Chelsea (Gaslight Mystery, #15) (4.24 Goodreads score)
- Murder on Wall Street (Gaslight Mystery, #24) (4.17 Goodreads score)
- Murder on Bank Street (Gaslight Mystery, #10) (4.12 Goodreads score)
- Murder on Amsterdam Avenue (Gaslight Mystery, #17) (4.12 Goodreads score)
- Murder on Marble Row (Gaslight Mystery, #6) (4.11 Goodreads score)
Awards
Victoria received the Career Achievement Award in Mystery Writing from RT Magazine in 2012. She has also been nominated for several other prestigious awards, including Agatha and Edgar Allan Poe.
Upcoming releases in the series
Murder on Madison Square, Victoria Thompson’s next book, will be released on July 1st, 2022.
Book summaries
Murder on Astor Place (1999)
After a routine delivery, Sarah visits her patient in a rooming house—and discovers that another boarder, a young girl, has been killed. At the request of Sergeant Frank Malloy, she searches the girl’s room. She discovers that the victim is from one of the most prominent families in New York—and the sister of an old friend. The powerful family, fearful of scandal, refuses to permit an investigation. But with Malloy’s help, Sarah begins a dangerous quest to bring the killer to justice—before death claims another victim…
Murder on St. Mark’s Place (2000)
In turn-of-the century New York City, midwife Sarah Brandt and Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy see birth and death–and even murder…
Murder on Gramercy Park (2001)
As a midwife in the turn-of-the-century tenements of New York City, Sarah Brandt has seen her share of suffering and joy, birth and death. Now, she learns that crime doesn’t discriminate, when the highest echelons of society are rocked by murder…A Gaslight MysteryAt a summons from Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy, Sarah arrives at the elegant home of famed magnetic healer Edmund Blackwell to find his wife in labor—and the good doctor dead from an apparent suicide. Only Malloy sees what no one else wants to: that Blackwell was murdered in his own home…After a successful delivery, the Blackwell baby falls mysteriously ill. Relying on her nurse’s training and woman’s intuition, Sarah discovers the source of the baby’s sickness—and discovers a scandal that leads Malloy’s investigation down a gilded path paved with greed, deception, and desire…
Murder on Astor Place (2002)
After a routine delivery, Sarah visits her patient in a rooming house—and discovers that another boarder, a young girl, has been killed. At the request of Sergeant Frank Malloy, she searches the girl’s room. She discovers that the victim is from one of the most prominent families in New York—and the sister of an old friend. The powerful family, fearful of scandal, refuses to permit an investigation. But with Malloy’s help, Sarah begins a dangerous quest to bring the killer to justice—before death claims another victim…
Murder on Mulberry Bend (2003)
Sarah Brandt, a midwife in turn-of-the-century New York City, has seen more than her share of joy and sorrow, birth and death. Now she will see for the first time how the squalor of the streets can breed madness and murder… The Prodigal Son Mission on Mulberry Bend stands as a refuge for girls who otherwise would have to live by selling the only thing they have of value—themselves. The work being done there so impresses Sarah that she volunteers to help out however she can—with clothes, with medical assistance, with the organization of a benefit dinner. And when one of the girls is found dead and refused burial because of her former life, Sarah’s passion for justice is aroused.Reluctantly, Sergeant Frank Malloy agrees to look into the death, if only to keep Sarah from endangering herself by pursuing the matter. But Sarah cannot be kept out of the investigation—and just as Malloy feared, her attempts to find the cause of the unfortunate girl’s death in the circumstances of her life put her in deadly danger—from an unexpected source…
Murder on Marble Row (2004)
When an explosion kills wealthy industrialist Gregory Van Dyke, Police Commissioner Teddy Roosevelt presumes that anarchists are responsible and personally asks Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy to track them down. Malloy is up to the challenge – but he faces a different kind of challenge when he encounters Sarah Brandt paying a condolence call on the Van Dykes. Faced with the impossibility of ever expressing his true feelings for Sarah, Frank had vowed never to see or work with her again.” For her part, Sarah is glad to be working with Malloy once again in his hunt for a dangerous killer – though they clash over his conviction that the murder was politically motivated.
Murder on Lenox Hill (2005)
When the affluent Lintons of Lenox Hill summon Sarah Brandt to examine their teenage daughter, their worst fear is confirmed: she is with child. The pregnancy is a mystery, however, as the young woman—mentally still a child herself—is never left on her own and denies that any man has ever hurt her. It’s a delicate situation, casting suspicion on those close to the Lintons, including their beloved minister, the Reverend Oliver Upchurch.But as Sarah and a reluctant Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy investigate, fate deals their inquiry a harsh blow. The reverend falls dead during a service—poisoned by cyanide-laced wine in his chalice. Now, they must not only uncover the truth behind the Linton girl’s pregnancy, they must track down Upchurch’s killer before this entire sordid affair wreaks havoc on more innocent lives…
Murder in Little Italy (2006)
As a midwife working in the tenements of turn-of-the-century New York, Sarah Brandt has witnessed joy and misery, birth and death. Now Sarah suffers the heartbreak of losing a patient-but not from natural causes.
Murder in Chinatown (2007)
In Chinatown to deliver a baby, Sarah Brandt meets a group of women she might otherwise never have come across: Irish girls who, after alighting on Ellis Island alone, have married Chinese men in the same predicament. But with bigotry in New York from every side, their mixed-race children are often treated badly, by the Irish, the Chinese—even the police. When the new mother’s half-Chinese, half-Irish, 15-year-old niece goes missing, Sarah knows that alerting the constables would prove futile. So she turns to Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy—and together they begin the search themselves. And after they find her, dead in an alley, Sarah and Malloy have ample suspects—from both sides of Canal Street.
Murder on Bank Street (2008)
In the four years since her husband’s death, midwife Sarah Brandt has become an angel of mercy in the tenements of turn-of-the-century New York. Now, Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy has taken up the task of solving the murder of Dr. Tom Brandt. But the shocking revelation he discovers may destroy Sarah-and Malloy’s hopes for any future with her.
Murder on Waverly Place (2009)
Midwife and sleuth Sarah Brandt and Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy must protect Sarah’s mother from scandal after she tries to contact her dead daughter during a séance that sends one of the attendees into the afterlife. But first, they have to determine how the woman was murdered in the pitch dark when all the suspects were holding hands.
Murder on Lexington Avenue (2010)
When Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy is assigned to investigate the murder of an influential man in the deaf community-presumably because his own son is hearing impaired-midwife Sarah Brandt lends a hand, only to find herself searching for a killer in an unfamiliar world where those who can hear refuse to listen to those who cannot.
Murder on Sisters’ Row (2011)
Summoned to an elegant house to deliver a baby, Sarah finds her patient is actually in a brothel. The young woman in labor reveals she is being held against her will and forced to prostitute herself—and that the madam intends to get rid of the baby. To rescue the new mother and her infant, Sarah secures the assistance of Mrs. Vivian Van Orner, a woman of means known for her charitable work. But their success comes at a high price when Mrs.Van Orner is found murdered.With Malloy’s help, Sarah’s investigation uncovers some unpleasant truths about the victim and her charity—as well as the woman and child Sarah risked her own life to save…
Murder on Fifth Avenue (2012)
Sarah Brandt’s family is one of the oldest in New York City, and her father, Felix Decker, takes his position in society very seriously. He still refuses to resign himself to his daughter being involved with an Irish Catholic police detective. But when a member of his private club—the very exclusive Knickerbocker—is murdered, Decker forms an uneasy alliance with Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy to solve the crime as discreetly as possible.Malloy soon discovers that despite his social standing, the deceased—Chilton Devries—was no gentleman. In fact, he’s left behind his own unofficial club of sorts, populated by everyone who despised him. As he and Sarah sort through the suspects, it becomes clear to her that her father is evaluating more than the detective’s investigative abilities, and that, on a personal level, there is much more at stake for Malloy than discovering who revoked Devries’ membership—permanently.
Murder in Chelsea (2013)
Sarah Brandt is shattered when she learns that a woman has inquired at the Daughters of Hope Mission for Catherine, the abandoned child she has taken as her daughter. The woman claims she was Catherine’s nursemaid, and is now acting on behalf of the girl’s mother to reunite them. Unwilling to simply hand Catherine over to a complete stranger, Sarah asks Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy to investigate. But when he goes to interview the woman at her tenement in Chelsea, he finds she has been murdered. Though her death leaves Sarah’s claim to Catherine unchallenged, her sense of justice compels her to work with Malloy to find the killer. Their search takes them from the marble mansions of the Upper West Side to the dilapidated dwellings of lower Manhattan and into the deepest and darkest secrets of Catherine’s past. And while Malloy helps Sarah determine the fate of the child she loves, he faces a challenge of his own—and his decision could change both their lives forever…
Murder in Murray Hill (2014)
A Gaslight MysteryFrank Malloy has never known any life other than that of a cop, but his newfound inheritance threatens his position within his department. While trying to keep both his relationship with Sarah and his fortune under wraps, he’s assigned to a new case—finding a missing young woman for her worried father, Henry Livingston.It seems the girl had been responding to “lonely hearts” ads in the paper for months before she disappeared. Her father thinks that she’s eloped with a deceptive stranger, but Malloy fears the worst, knowing that the grifters who place such ads often do much more than simply abscond with their victims. But as Sarah and Malloy delve deeper into a twisted plot targeting the city’s single women, it’s their partnership—both professional and private—that winds up in the greatest peril…
Murder on Amsterdam Avenue (2015)
In the midst of Sarah and Frank’s wedding preparations, Sarah accompanies her mother on a condolence call to the Upper West Side, where Charles Oakes, the son of family friends, has died unexpectedly after suffering from a mysterious disease. But Charles’s father believes his son was poisoned, and would like Sarah and Frank to look into the matter with the utmost discretion. Putting off their own personal affairs, Sarah and Frank soon learn that not everyone wants to know more about Charles’s death, particularly if he was murdered. As they unravel secrets that reach back to the Civil War, they also discover that they are in the company of a very present danger…
Murder on St. Nicholas Avenue (2015)
Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy and Sarah Brandt aren’t the only ones who’ve recently tied the knot. Family friend Mrs. O’Neill was delighted when her daughter, Una, wed the seemingly wealthy and charming Randolph Pollock. But there’s a problem. Una was found cradling her dead husband’s body. Rendered mute by the ordeal, she cannot explain what happened and now stands charged with murder. Mrs. O’Neill would like Frank to investigate the case and save Una, yet with Frank and Sarah still on their honeymoon, it’s up to the other members of their newly formed household to do some detective work. But solving the mystery behind Pollock’s death means first discovering the truth about who he really is…
Murder in Morningside Heights (2016)
After spending his first few weeks as a private detective by investigating infidelities of the wealthy, Frank has a more serious case at hand. Abigail Northrup of Tarrytown, New York, was her parents’ pride and joy. After graduating from a prestigious women’s college in Morningside Heights, she took a job there as an instructor. She also joined the ranks of the New Women, ladies planning for a life without a husband in which they make their own decisions and make a difference in the world. Unfortunately, her murder ended all that. When the police declare the incident a random attack and refuse to investigate further, Abigail’s parents request Frank’s help. Of course, he’ll need Sarah’s assistance as she’s more familiar with the world of academia, and it will be far easier for her to interview the lady professors. Yet difficulties arise as they learn that although Miss Northrup may have been an exemplary student and teacher, she lived in a world of secrets and lies…
Murder in the Bowery (2017)
Frank Malloy’s latest client is the well-dressed Will Bert. He’s searching for his brother, a newsboy named Freddie, so he can share his new financial good fortune. Frank makes quick work of the case and locates Freddie, but a happy reunion between brothers is not in the cards. When Will’s name is mentioned, Freddie runs off—only to be found dead a short time later. Suspicious, Frank tracks down Will who spins a tale of lust and deceit involving a young society woman, Estelle Longacre, also recently deceased. Frank can’t be sure if Estelle’s risky behavior and the company she kept was to blame, or if her own ruthless family had a hand in her death.Frank will need Sarah’s help to unearth the dark secrets of the wealthy Longacres and to discover if there is a connection between Estelle and Freddie’s death. Together they must navigate a perilous underground web of treachery to find the truth.
Murder on Union Square (2018)
Sarah and Frank Malloy are enjoying married life and looking to make their family official by adopting Catherine, the child whom Sarah rescued and has been raising as her daughter. The process seems fairly straightforward, but at the last minute, the newlyweds discover that Parnell Vaughn, Catherine’s legal father, has a claim on the child, and his grasping fiancée is demanding a financial settlement to relinquish parental rights. Even though exchanging money for a child is illegal, Frank and Sarah’s love for Catherine drives them to comply.When Frank returns with the money and finds Vaughn beaten to death, all evidence points to Frank as the culprit. A not-quite-famous actor with modest means, Vaughn seems an unlikely candidate for murder, particularly such a violent crime of passion. But Frank soon uncovers real-life intrigue as dramatic as any that appears on stage.Sarah and Frank enlist those closest to them to help hunt for Vaughn’s killer as Frank’s own life–and the future of their family–hang in the balance.
Murder on Trinity Place (2019)
The year of 1899 is drawing to a close. Frank and Sarah Malloy are getting ready to celebrate the New Year at Trinity Church when they notice Mr. Pritchard, a relative of their neighbor’s, behaving oddly and annoying the other revelers. Frank tries to convince Pritchard to return home with them, but the man refuses and Frank loses him in the crowd. The next morning Sarah and Frank are horrified to learn Pritchard was murdered sometime in the night, his body left on Trinity Place, the side street near the church.The police aren’t too interested in the murder, and the family are concerned that the circumstances of the death will reflect badly on Pritchard’s reputation. To protect the family from scandal, Nelson asks Frank to investigate. Frank and Sarah delve into Pritchard’s past and realize there may have been a deadly side to the dawning of the new century.
Murder on Pleasant Avenue (2020)
A young woman is missing in the upper Manhattan neighborhood called Italian Harlem, and everyone knows whoʼs responsible—the Black Hand, a notorious group known for terrorizing their own community with violence and kidnappings. Gino and Frank set out to learn more about the disreputable gang and soon find a lead: a saloon-owning gangster named Nunzio Esposito.Gino hates that a fellow immigrant would stoop so low and decides to confront his wayward countryman. But he quickly discovers the man can’t be reasoned with—because he’s been murdered. The police have only one suspect: Gino Donatelli.Frank and Sarah know Gino is no killer, but someone has pulled out all the stops to make it look like he is guilty. They also must now face the Black Hand, who are honor-bound to avenge the death of one of their own.With evidence mounting against their friend and a group of bad guys out for blood, Sarah and Frank race to unravel a treacherous plot before Gino’s time runs out.
Murder on Wall Street (2021)
Reformed gangster Jack Robinson is working hard to bolster his image in Gilded Age New York City society as he prepares to become a new father. But when Hayden Norcross, the man who nearly ruined his wife, is shot in cold blood, Jack knows the police will soon come knocking on his door. Frank Malloy has to agree—things don’t look good for Jack. But surely a man as unlikeable as Hayden had more than a few enemies. And it’s soon clear that plenty of the upper echelon as well as the denizens of the most squalid areas of the city seem to have hated him.Sarah and Frank have their work cut out for them. As the daughter of the elite Decker family, Sarah has access to the social circles Hayden frequented, and the more she learns about his horrific treatment of women, the more disturbed she becomes. And as Frank investigates, he finds that Hayden had a host of unsavory habits that may have hastened his demise. But who finally killed him? Sarah and Frank must put the pieces together quickly before time runs out and Jack’s hard-won new life and family are ripped apart.
Murder on Madison Square (2022)
Former policeman Frank Malloy is frustrated when a woman requests his private detective services to implicate her wealthy husband in adultery, the only legal grounds for divorce in New York state. Although Mrs. Bing seems genuinely distressed about her marriage and desperate to end it, she refuses to tell Frank the reason she absolutely must divorce her husband and admits she has no legal grounds. Frank explains he won’t manufacture evidence for her and sends her on her way. The following week, Frank and Sarah happen to be attending the first ever auto show in Madison Square Garden when they meet the woman’s husband, Alfred Bing, who has invested in a company that produces one of the electric motorcars on display. A few days later, the newspapers report that millionaire Alvin Bing has been found dead, pinned beneath one of the wheels of his very own motorcar. But who was driving it? The obvious suspect is Mrs. Bing, but Frank and Sarah find that nothing is as it seems in their puzzling, dangerous search for truth.
