The first two volumes of the Timothy Wilde trilogy brought the early days of the NYPD to life through relatable characters and historical research. Their central mysteries were complex without being convoluted, and they set up so many compelling threads that I couldn’t wait to see how the third volume wrapped them all up.
However, The Fatal Flame falters just where you’d like it to soar. The plotting is too loose, the mystery too easily solved, and the prose too long-winded and winding to hold your interest.
Where The Gods of Gotham dealt with the horrific fates awaiting poor children and immigrants, and Seven for a Secret explored the conflict between North and South over the Fugitive Slave Act, The Fatal Flame centers on the conflict between women in the workforce and the men they are supposedly squeezing out. Faye focuses on the garment industry and the unfortunate women who spend their days going blind stitching low-quality clothes for Southern slaves. When a women with radical ideas organizes a protest against the factory owner, a local alderman, the consequences are tragic. A slew of burning buildings, threatening notes, and a few dead seamstresses.
Still, in terms of scale, The Fatal Flame is a decided step-down from its predecessors. Whodunit should be dreadfully obvious to anyone whose ever so much as watched a Law & Order once or twice in their life. And while the personal narrative of Timothy Wilde and his brother Valentine reaches a satisfying conclusion, a tacked on ending lends credence to the overriding thought that it’s hard to end a book and even harder to end a series.