the true story of New York's City's greatest female detective and the 1917 missing girl case that captivated a nation
Brad Ricca: Mrs. Sherlock Holmes (2017)
436 pages
English language
Published Aug. 22, 2017
Presents the true story of the first female U.S. District Attorney and traveling detective who found missing eighteen-year-old Ruth Cruger when the entire NYPD had given up.
"In 1917, on the day before Valentine's Day, eighteen-year-old Ruth Cruger disappeared. When the police gave up, a mysterious woman in black vowed to find her. Mrs. Sherlock Holmes tells the true story of Grace Humiston, the detective and lawyer who turned her back on New York society life to become one of the nation's greatest crime fighters during an era when women were rarely involved with investigations. After agreeing to take the sensational Cruger case, Grace and her partner, the hardboiled detective Julius J. Kron, navigated a dangerous web of secret boyfriends, two-faced cops, underground tunnels, rumors of white slavery, and a mysterious pale man, in a desperate race against time. Grace's motto "Justice for those of limited means" led her to …
Presents the true story of the first female U.S. District Attorney and traveling detective who found missing eighteen-year-old Ruth Cruger when the entire NYPD had given up.
"In 1917, on the day before Valentine's Day, eighteen-year-old Ruth Cruger disappeared. When the police gave up, a mysterious woman in black vowed to find her. Mrs. Sherlock Holmes tells the true story of Grace Humiston, the detective and lawyer who turned her back on New York society life to become one of the nation's greatest crime fighters during an era when women were rarely involved with investigations. After agreeing to take the sensational Cruger case, Grace and her partner, the hardboiled detective Julius J. Kron, navigated a dangerous web of secret boyfriends, two-faced cops, underground tunnels, rumors of white slavery, and a mysterious pale man, in a desperate race against time. Grace's motto "Justice for those of limited means" led her to strange cases all over the world. From defending an innocent giant on death row to investigating an island in Arkansas with a terrible secret, from the warring halls of Congress to a crumbling medieval tower in Italy, Grace solved crimes in between shopping at Bergdorf Goodman and being marked for death by the sinister Black Hand. Grace was appointed the first female U.S. district attorney in history and the first female consulting detective to the New York Police Department. Despite her many successes in social justice, at the height of her powers Grace began to see chilling connections in the cases she solved, leading to a final showdown with her most fearsome adversary of all. Mrs. Sherlock Holmes is the first-ever narrative biography of this singular woman the press nicknamed after fiction's greatest detective. Her poignant story reveals important clues about the relationship between missing girls, the media, and the real truth of crime stories. The great mystery of Grace's life--and the haunting twist ending of the book--is how one woman could become so famous only to disappear from history completely"--Dust jacket.
This book was all over the place and focused too much attention on random cases and not enough on Grace Humiston herself. I'm hoping there is a better book about her out there. I'd love to read it.
Meticulous research and deep respect bleed through this well-crafted work of true crime, bringing a well-deserved spotlight to what would otherwise be a forgotten story and a forgotten historical heroine.
