CITY OF LIARS AND THIEVES is the story of the murder of Elma Sands and the trial of Levi Weeks for that murder. Eve Karlin based this on a true event and does a masterful job of telling the story in the manner of a historical fiction.
You feel the love Caty had for her cousin Elma as she goes missing and is subsequently found dead. The way Eve Karlin not only tells their stories but the stories of the people who lived in Manhattan at that time and their hardships.
As the story of the trial begins Levi Weeks is defended by Arron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. The true stories of these historical characters and many more are fascinating. The trial and all the history of the events are well written. At the end of CITY OF LIARS AND THIEVES Eve Karlin gives all the historical accounts and information from the times and the outcome of the lives of all the people involved.
Eve Karlin writes a great story and historical account in CITY OF LIARS AND THIEVES. Once you start reading you won't stop until you're done.
A crime that rocked a city. A case that stunned a nation.
Based on the United Statesβ first recorded murder trial,
Eve
Karlinβs spellbinding debut novel re-creates early
nineteenth-century New York City, where a love affair ends
in a brutal murder and a conspiracy involving Alexander
Hamilton and Aaron Burr erupts in shattering violence.
It is high time to tell the truth. Time for justice. . . .
How she was murdered and why she haunts me. It is not only
Elmaβs story, itβs mine.
On the bustling docks of the Hudson River, Catherine Ring
waits with her husband and children for the ship carrying
her cousin, Elma Sands. Their Greenwich Street
boardinghouse
becomes a haven for Elma, who has at last escaped the
stifling confines of her small hometown and the shameful
circumstances of her birth. But in the summer of 1799,
Manhattan remains a teeming cesspool of stagnant swamps
and
polluted rivers. The city is desperate for clean water as
fires wreak devastation and the death toll from yellow
fever
surges.
Political tensions are rising, too. Itβs an election year,
and Alexander Hamilton is hungry for power. So is his
rival,
Aaron Burr, who has announced the formation of the
Manhattan
Water Company. But their private struggle becomes very
public when the body of Elma Sands is found at the bottom
of
a city well built by Burrβs company.
Resolved to see justice done, Catherine becomes both
witness
and avenger. She soon finds, however, that the shocking
truth behind this trial has nothing to do with guilt or
innocence.
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